Reviews of Secrets of Professional Tournament Poker, Volume 1

Little does an exemplary job of analyzing situations and giving sound ad-
vice in an easy-to-read writing style that keeps you turning the pages.
Gamingtoday.com
Jonathan Little’s book may well be the best tournament poker book written
since Harrington’s.
PokerQ4.com
Here is the penultimate sentence in Secrets of Professional Tournament
Poker: “If you become lazy, you will be left in the dust.” Memorize, grasp,
understand, use the information Little offers, you’ll be the one kicking up
that dust.
Jack Welch, Pokerheadrush.com
This book is a blend of analytical and common sense. For people who want
to be competitive in MTTs as they are currently played, I think that this
book is essential.
Thegoodgamblingguide.co.uk
This book may not be a break through book in the history of poker writing,
but it has all the masala to get you going and reach heights. After all this
book comes to you by someone who has already been there, seen it and
done it all! Go Grab it!
Pokerstarus.com
If you’re looking to improve your game and pick up a book that can help
you do that, then give SOPTP a try.
Chad Holloway, PokerNews.com
Jonathan Little is one of the premier tournament poker players in the
world today. I personally have learned so much from him and you can too.
Shannon Shorr
First pub lished in 2012 by D & B Pub lish ing
Copy right © 2012 Jonathan Little

The right of Jonathan Little to be iden tified as the au thor of this work has been asserted in ac-
cord ance with the Copy rights, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this pub lication may be repro duced, stored in a retrieval system or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, electro static, mag netic tape, pho to copy ing,
record ing or oth erwise, without prior permission of the pub lisher.

British Library Cata loguing-in-Publica tion Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Lib rary.

ISBN: 978 1 90446 858 5

All sales en quiries should be directed to D&B Pub lish ing:
e-mail: info@dand b poker.com; web site: www.dand b poker.com
To my parents, Larry and Rita Little

Cover design by Horatio Mon teverde.

Prin ted and bound by Versa Press in the US.
 Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction
1 Stages of a Tournament
Early Levels
Middle Levels
The Bubble
In The Money
The Final-Table Bubble
The Final Table
2 Short-Handed Play
Six- to Four-Handed Play
Three-Handed Play
Heads Up Play
Heads Up Pre-Flop Play
Heads Up Post-Flop Play
Heads Up Short-Stack Play
3 Developing Your Poker Skills
Learning
Be Open Minded but Skeptical
Apply What You Learn
Have a Clear Mind
Find a Study Group
Learn to Think for Yourself
Coming Up with New Lines
4 The Mental and Physical Approach
Opportunity Cost
Game Selection
 Patience
Take Your Time
Dealing with Loss
Tilt
Playing Against Someone on Tilt
Put in Hours but Take Breaks
Intuition
Luck
Physical
Sleeping
Be in Good Shape
Endurance
Breathing
Good Posture
Nutrition
5 Tells
General Tells
Initial Reads
Having No Tells
Do Not Give Away Free Information
The Hand isn’t Over Until it’s Over
Take Useful Notes
Raise the Same Amount Every Time
Bet-Sizing Tells
Timing Tells
Busy Tells
Chip Placement
Chip Tricks
Poker Gear Tells
Tells Based on Who You Associate With
Giving Off Reverse Tells
 Hollywooding
Looking Back At Your Hand
World-Class Players
Hand Reading
6 Practical Tips for Tournament Play
Protect your Hand
When to Look at your Hand
When You Think a Card Flashes
Look Left
Checking in the Dark
Betting Weird Amounts
Do Not Worry About the Average Stack
When Your Bluff is Called
When the Big Blind is Sitting Out
Chopping
Pot-Limit Holdem
Do Not Slow Down the Game
Show Up on Time
Confirm the Action if You Miss It
Carry a Bag
How to Stack Your Chips
Making Change
Do Not Put Chips in Your Pocket
Sunglasses
Headphones
Treat People Well
Do Not Berate Poor Play
Do Not Fear the Pros
Table Talk
Do Not Talk Strategy at the Table
7 Etiquette
 Do Not Talk to the Person you Just Beat
Excessive Celebration
Know What You are Talking About
Rapping the Table
Telling the All-In Player “Good Luck”
Talking During the Hand
Do Not Reveal Your Cards
Make Chips Easy for the Dealer to See
8 Going Pro
Do Not Overestimate Yourself
Do Not Try to be Macho
Do Not Set Silly Goals
Do Not Pity Yourself
Be a Good Person
Leaks
Poker is a Numbers Game
Have a Large Skill Set
Know the Game You are Playing
Play a Game with a Future
Play in Soft Games
The Long Run
Bankroll
Downswings
The Rake
Hourly Rate
Spots You Should Not Pass Up
Other Sources of Income
Have a Retirement Fund
Coaching
Do Not Loan Money
Find Ways to Solve Problems
 Differences Between Live and Online Poker
Online Tournaments
How to Multi-Table
It Takes a Year to Adjust to Live Poker
Know How to Play Short-handed
Soft Large-Buy-In Tournaments
World Series of Poker
World Poker Tour
Traveling the Circuit
9 Hand Examples
10 Questions and Answers
Conclusion
 Acknowledgements

In Secrets of Professional Tournament Poker: Volume 1, I gave thanks to

everyone that helped me become a technically sound poker player. In this
volume I would like to thank everyone that helped me learn to be success-
ful at life. First, I would like to thank my parents for always helping me in
every way they knew how. I owe them a great debt for supporting me in
everything I tried. I would also like to thank the rest of my family, includ-
ing my brother Garrett for always being there for me.
I would like to thank Daniel Stanley for helping me with my numerous
poker training businesses. If I didn’t randomly meet Dan a few years ago, I
could have easily given up on helping people learn to play poker. He has
made my life much easier and better in so many ways. I would like to
thank Shannon Shorr and Dave Benefield for helping me to meet everyone
I know in the poker world. If I didn’t meet these two guys, I could easily
have very few friends in poker. Instead, I have too many to count. I would
like to thank Steve Begleiter for teaching me so much about life. I had the
opportunity to coach Steve for his WSOP main event final table. Even
though I was officially the coach, I was really the student. I have learned a
ton from Steve about numerous aspects of life.
I would like to thank Hoyt Corkins for introducing me to the wonderful
world that is outside my house and away from the poker table. Hoyt has
shown me all around the mountains and deserts of Nevada and California.
If I had never met him, I would be much more tilted and unhappy in my
day-to-day life. I would like to thank Amie Broder for offering numerous
great ideas that helped me make this book more complete. She constantly
looks out for me and helps me become a better, more complete person. I
would be lost without her. I would like to thank Byron and Dan at D&B
Publishing for having the faith to trust a previously unpublished author to
write what we all hope to be the definitive series on tournament poker.
Finally, I would like to thank all my students. If I did not have such a ded-
icated group of learners, I would not have been motivated to write this
book. It excites me every time I open my email box and read another suc-
cess story about how someone watched my training videos, either from
www.JonathanLittleSecrets.com or www.FloatTheTurn.com, and trans-
formed from a breakeven or losing player to a big winner. It goes to show
that if you work hard and study a lot, pretty much anyone can learn to beat
poker. If this book helps you improve your game, email me and let me
know.
 Introduction

I outlined a strategy in Volume 1 to make you a winner at tournament play.

In this book I will explain how to alter your game at each level of a tour-
nament and squeak the most equity out of every situation. You do this by
constantly adjusting to your opponents, learning their tells and staying in
shape, both mentally and physically. I will teach you how to think, which
will help you win at the game of life, which should be everyone’s ultimate
goal. After all, if you sit at a poker table all your life, you really haven’t
accomplished anything. I will also answer some of the questions that come
up most often in my private coaching sessions. I hope you are ready to
learn everything it takes to be a pro, both on and off the felt.
 Chapter 1

Stages of a Tournament

You must significantly alter your game as a tournament progresses. This is

because the person that takes first place does not win the entire prize pool.
In a standard tournament, first place will be between 20 percent and 50
percent of the total prize pool, depending on the number of entrants. In
general, the more money that is awarded to the top finishers, the more
likely you should play to win. Sometimes though, you will find spots
where you gain a lot of money by folding.
For example, you are down to three players in a World Poker Tour (WPT)
event. You have 1 million chips, one player has 3 million chips and the
other has 10 million chips. Suppose the player with 3 million chips goes
all-in and the player with 10 million chips calls. If the payouts are $1 mil-
lion for first, $500,000 for second and $250,000 for third, you should fold
almost every hand. By folding, you give yourself a great chance to go from
almost certainly getting $250,000 to perhaps getting $500,000. In this
spot, depending on the blind structure, you can easily justify folding hands
as strong as A-K or J-J.
When you play a tournament, you need to know the prize structure. If an
unusually large share of the prize pool goes to first place, you should play
the tournament as if winning is the only thing that matters. If a large per-
centage of the field gets in the money, you should play fairly tight until
you get in the money, and then play to win. In a standard online sitngo, 30
percent of the field, three out of 10 players, gets paid. This causes some
pretty wild situations because it is not too tough to get in the money. In
these tournaments, your main concern is to get in the money unless you
know everyone else cares about the money more than you do. This usually
occurs on the bubble, which will be addressed later in this section.
The early stages of a deep-stacked tournament are played much like a cash
game because you are usually a long way from the money. Your chips are
worth about what you paid for them, whereas in the later stages their value
is significantly diminished because money will soon be taken out of the
prize pool to pay players. You can play the strategy outlined in the “Play-
ing Poker” section of Volume 1 of this set with little or no modification.
As stacks get shorter, you will have to adjust. Some tables will let you run
them over, winning every blind and ante, while some will never let you see
a flop for less than 10 big blinds (BBs). You will have to adjust to each
table, as well as the structure. Poker is a constant balancing act. Whoever
can juggle all the variables the best will come out on top in the long run.
This section will help you do just that.
 Early Levels
In the early levels of a tournament, some players show up running on all
cylinders while others play very tight. You must quickly determine who is
scared to bust and who is going out of his way to get chips or go home
early.
I never show up to a tournament with a specific game plan. As in all forms
of poker, you should take what the table gives you. If you are constantly
being re-raised, you need to be tight, and if you pick up every pot before
the flop with a small raise, you should attack the blinds relentlessly.
The penalty for being tight is fairly small when there are no antes in play,
as is the case in the early levels of most tournaments. You can blind off for
a while before your stack starts to diminish significantly. Most tourna-
ments start you off with a very deep stack, which is another reason why
you can play tight for a while. I played a charity tournament where we
started with 1,000 chips playing 5/10 blinds with 20-minute levels. I was
totally card dead for the first hour but only blinded off 15 percent of my
chips. I finally got a good hand and doubled up. Waiting an hour for a hand
cost me very little, so it was the best play, especially since the players at
the table didn’t care about my image.
I used to get upset when I lost chips in the first few levels of a major tour-
nament. I eventually realized that it wasn’t the end of the world if I started
a tournament with 30,000 chips and went into the middle levels with
28,000. Do not become result-oriented about your stack because in reality,
it doesn’t matter much. If you can make it out of the early levels while
giving yourself a few opportunities to gather chips, you have done your
job well regardless of whether you actually get them.
When you first show up to a tournament, your goal should be to figure out
who is going to give you free chips. This requires you to pay attention.
Don’t be eating breakfast or watching sports on TV. Pay attention to the
poker game. I play a bit tighter than normal at the start of most tourna-
ments. This keeps me out of trouble while I am getting a good handle on
everyone at the table.
I tend to get my chips from two types of players. The first is the tight
player that vastly overplays top pair or any big hand. These guys will raise
and re-raise their big hands post-flop regardless of what comes on the
board, which is obviously a huge mistake. They are usually older players
with some experience, but not a lot. You can usually pinpoint them by
their tightness, and also by their aggressiveness after the flop with hands
like an overpair that don’t warrant such action. If you don’t know the cor-
rect way to play hands like overpairs, please reread Volume 1.
The way to beat these players is to play as many pots as possible in posi-
tion against them. Ideally, you will all be fairly deep-stacked and you can
see a flop for 3 BBs or less. Some of these players raise larger pre-flop, to
around 5 BBs, but even then you should rarely fold hands like 9♠-7♠ or 2-
2. Call with these hands because these players are going to flop a hand like
top pair and be unable to fold to your aggression when you flop a monster.
Also, they think they are supposed to raise and reraise the flop with top
pair, which we already know is a huge mistake. So, see lots of flops in pos-
ition with hands that have high implied odds, like A♠-4♠, 9♦-8♦ and 3-3.
Don’t call their raises with hands like A-9 or K-10. These will make you
the second-best hand quite often against their raising range, so avoid them
like the plague.
You will get a lot of chips from the loose players. They come in two types:
good and bad. You can spot them by the fact that they are involved in a de-
cent number of pots. The good ones will randomly spew chips into the pot,
usually when they think you are weak. The bad, loose players tend to over-
play every hand they make, and they usually can’t fold a hand better than
middle pair.
Against the loose-aggressive players, tend to act weak when you are strong
and go into pot-control mode. Be happy calling three barrels with hands
like top pair. Act as if you are debating every decision, which will induce
most bad players, who think they are great at reading tells, to bluff like
crazy. Once they see how you tricked them, you should play a fairly nor-
mal game without much hollywooding. If the loose players are calling sta-
tions, feel free to value-bet with a wide range of good, but not great hands
if you think they can call with worse. Some of these players will con-
stantly find ways to call down with ace-high. Against these players, hands
that normally have high reverse implied odds, like K-J, become very play-
able because you are looking to induce bluffs when you make a hand like
top pair, bad kicker. You obviously should play all hands with high implied
odds because when these players decide to get super-aggressive, you will
prefer to have a strong hand.
Once you have found the player that is going to give you his chips, try to
enter pots with him anytime you have a hand that plays well against his
range. You can still play pots with everyone else, but be mindful of the
weak players. Also, there may be more than one weak player at the table.
Sometimes everyone at the table is weak. In this case, try to pinpoint the
worst players and go after them.
There are times when you should deviate from your standard game to play
a pot with a weak player. Suppose everyone has 200 BBs and a good,
loose-aggressive player raises from middle position, a player that is overly
aggressive with any top pair calls in the cutoff and you pick up A-Q on the
button. This is a good spot to just call instead of re-raise because if you get
an A-x-x flop, you can be happy playing the pot against either player,
whereas re-raising may force the weak player off a hand like A-4 that
would have paid you off on favorable flops.
I am all for going after the bad players, but don’t get carried away. Some
professionals play so many hands against the weak players that their edge
vanishes. No matter how bad a player is, you shouldn’t be calling his
raises with hands like Q-4. Be smart and go after the dead money when
you are the favorite.
While you do have to survive to make it deep in a tournament, if you are
not constantly giving yourself opportunities to gather chips, trying to sur-
vive will lead to death. You see some players at the top of the tournament
leader board every so often. While it doesn’t mean much if a person is at
the top of any individual tournament, the people that consistently have the
most chips tend to bring home the titles.
Tournament poker is often compared to a marathon, at least by the tight
players. I view tournaments as a marathon where the winners are required
to sprint from time to time. You can and should have many gears in your
game. Your early-level play should depend entirely on your table. Most
tables will let you get away with a few plays and will often give you some
great chances to pick up chips with little risk.
Suppose someone raises from early position to 3 BBs out of a 200-BB
stack and you are in middle position with 8♠-6♠. Most tight players will
fold here, saying they want to conserve chips and not gamble, but this is an
excellent spot to see a cheap flop. Some players refer to a cheap pot as one
you can limp into. This is silly, as the difference between one and three big
blinds isn’t too much when you are deep-stacked. Also, you would some-
times prefer the pot to be larger pre-flop because pots grow exponentially
in holdem. You need some sort of pot early in the hand if you want it to
grow large by the end.
So, you call with your 8♠-6♠ and the big blind calls as well. The flop
comes A♣-7♠-4♦. Everyone checks to the initial raiser, who bets 6 BBs.

This is another great spot to call, even though you only have a gutshot. No-
tice that you also have a backdoor flush draw. The important concept is
that you are getting huge implied odds. Your opponent probably has an
ace, which means you can easily get two big bets in on the turn and river if
you peel your 5. You can also see a river if you turn a flush draw. Finally,
if your opponent checks the turn, you can usually take a stab at the pot be-
cause he may not have an ace. So, one of two good things can happen. You
can hit your 5 and win a large pot or bet the turn when your opponent
checks and win a small pot. When you bet the turn after he checks, you
will still see the river if he calls, and will almost certainly get paid off if
you hit your 5. When you miss and your opponent bets the turn, you can
just fold, losing 8 BBs out of your 200-BB stack. You can either pick up a
nice pot or lose a tiny one. You should be willing to risk a little to gain a
lot.
Many spots look great but should be avoided. Suppose a player raises from
middle position to 3 BBs and you are on his left with 3♠-2♠. I would just
fold pre-flop because 3♠-2♠ flops poorly. But pretend you call and the
small blind calls as well. The flop comes J♠-8♠-4♣. The initial raiser
bets 6 BBs and you call, which is fine. The small blind raises to 24 BBs
and the initial raiser calls. It’s best to fold, even though you have a flush
draw. Your hand may be good if you hit, but it is tough to know with any
certainty. Even if you do peel the flush, you will be stuck playing pot con-
trol and could lose a large pot to a bigger flush, which is certainly in both
your opponents’ ranges. You will rarely be able to bluff and pick up this
pot later. Save yourself the trouble and get out of the way.
It is interesting that sometimes you should easily call with a gutshot and
other times you have an easy fold with a flush draw. You should take small
risks to gain a lot of chips at times, while other times you should fold
without a second thought. You should have very few problems if you play
intelligently and think ahead about what could happen later in a hand.
You may remember how I suggested using pot control often in tourna-
ments. This is another way to avoid getting a lot of money in when you are
in bad shape. You will occasionally give up thin value on the river in ex-
change for keeping some chips when you are wrong.
I played a hand where everyone started with 6,000 chips. I raised with
9♠-7♠ from middle position to 150 and the big blind called. The flop
came Q♥-7♣-2♠. My opponent checked and I bet 200. He check-raised to
525 and I called because I thought he was fairly weak. Plus, I had draws
for two pair or trips and a backdoor flush draw. The turn was the 3♠. My
opponent bet 1,200. I was pretty sure he had a big hand at this point, but I
would be happy getting more money in if I hit. The river was the Q♠. My
opponent bet 2,500 and I just called. I didn’t push with my last 1,600 chips
because of the hands he would call with, I only beat a queen that didn’t
make a full house.
My opponent showed A-Q and the table went nuts wondering why I hadn’t
raised. The answer is that winning an extra 1,600 chips when my opponent
didn’t have a full house was not worth going broke when he did. Even if he
had a full house only 40 percent of the time, meaning I would win 1,600
more chips 60 percent of the time and go broke 40 percent of the time, I
would still just call. Having 1,600 chips at 25/50 is worth a lot, whereas
the difference between 10,400 and 12,000 is miniscule. This is another ex-
ample of how chips change value in a tournament. As your stack gets
shorter, your chips become much more valuable and should be conserved
when possible.
As you can see, some risk is good and some is bad. Think about what you
want to accomplish on each hand and whether it is worth the risk. In gen-
eral, if a lot of good things can come from an investment, go for it. If only
bad things can happen, fold and wait for a better spot. Constantly think
about these things and you will find yourself in great spots and avoiding
bad ones.
Some players have a style that ensures they either go broke or double up
fairly early in a tournament. This is a terrible idea if playing that specific
tournament is the most important thing in the world to you. If you would
rather be doing something else besides playing a tournament, skip it. That
being said, some people do not care about any individual tournament, so
they either want to double up early or bust. Some players believe their
edge over their opponents greatly increases as their stack size grows larger
than everyone else’s. I believe this is mostly a mental problem, although I
am sure some of them play better with a big stack. That being said, if you
play tournaments for a living and winning each one is important to you,
you shouldn’t be too willing to throw your chips in the pot early in a tour-
nament without a great reason.
Here’s an example. I played a $10,000 WPT event at which someone
raised from first position. Another player called and a player that tries to
double up or bust re-raised to 15 BBs out of his 300-BB stack from the
button. The original raiser four-bet to 50 BBs. Everyone folded back to the
button, who went all-in. The initial raiser called with A-A and beat the
button’s 9♠-7♠. While this might appear crazy, it actually has some merit
because 9♠-7♠ will do decently well against his opponent’s calling range,
which is something like A-A, K-K, Q-Q and A-K. Some opponents will
even fold K-K, Q-Q and A-K to an all-in in the early levels of a tourna-
ment. Nevertheless, you will never see me making these plays.
These huge bluffs are rarely worth it unless you have something more im-
portant to do. You are much better off biding your time and waiting for
someone to give his stack to you. I am pretty certain I have never given
my stack away in the early levels without good reason, such as a read that
turned out to be incorrect. If you are patient and play as I suggested in the
“Playing Poker” section of Volume 1, you will have no problem finding
great spots to get your money in during the early levels without getting it
in bad too often.
 Middle Levels
Antes come into play after a few hours in most tournaments. This forces
everyone to loosen up or be blinded off at a much faster rate than before.
Most tournaments slowly introduce the antes, and amateurs tend to ignore
them. For example, in most large tournaments, the blinds will go 25/50,
50/100, 75/150, 100/200, 100/200-25 (i.e., 100/200 with 25 ante). Many
players say 100/200 and 100/200-25 are the same, but they are not. One or-
bit of blinds at 100/200 costs you 300. You pay 550 in blinds and antes at
100/200-25, almost twice as much because of that tiny 25 ante. That also
means that a steal brings in 550 chips instead of 300.
Most players fail to adjust their pre-flop raises to account for the pot being
almost two times larger with that small ante. While good players can get
away with raising to 2.5 BBs, most amateurs continue to raise to 2.5 BBs
or 3 BBs. This is generally a mistake because they are giving the rest of
the table great odds to call, and they likely don’t play as well as they be-
lieve. They should instead raise to 3.5 BBs or 4 BBs. Good players can
continue to raise to around 2.5 BBs before the flop when antes are intro-
duced. Notice that if you raise to 500 pre-flop at 100/200-25 and pick up
the blinds and antes half the time, you will show a profit even if you
check-fold every hand when called. You should also profit when called,
which makes stealing with a wide range very profitable.
You should instantly notice that if you only steal the blinds and antes
every 1.5 orbits, you will lose money over time. This is what happens to
tight players. They wait for premium hands that sometimes never come
around, and end up blinding off. In fact, most weak-tight players stand
little to no chance in high-buy-in tournaments because they fail to adjust
to the antes. This is one of the main reasons why cash-game players fail at
tournaments. They simply play too tight.
They also fail to adjust to the fact that everyone’s stack slowly diminishes.
Depending on the tournament, you may have 200 BBs once the ante comes
into play or you may be starting to get short-stacked. Despite your chip
stack, the general strategy outlined in the “Playing Poker” section of
Volume 1 will work well. You will stay well ahead of the field as long as
you constantly raise and steal pots. In fact, most professionals’ stacks start
growing once the antes enter play.
You should actively attack the blinds of tight players who wait for
premium hands. As long as an opponent isn’t super-aggressive, you should
raise his blinds with any mediocre hand, especially when you are in posi-
tion. If a tight player re-raises, you can simply fold unless you are deep-
stacked and have a hand with huge implied odds. Remember that you
profit if you pick up the blinds just half the time. This means you can af-
ford to wait for better spots than before, as long as you are deep-stacked
and don’t have to worry about going broke or risking too much of your
stack on a steal.
Sometimes you will find yourself in the middle levels of a tournament
with only 25 BBs or so, especially when you start with a modest stack of
chips or the tournament has a poor structure. When this happens, just push
over top of the raise of an overly aggressive player. If you can find a few
tight players, attack their blinds relentlessly by raising to 2.25 BBs or so,
assuming they will fold to such a small raise. Some players will always
call 2.25-BB raises before the flop. Against these players, don’t be scared
to raise to 2.5 BBs or even 2.75 BBs. Remember, much of your profit will
come from making your opponent fold when he is getting proper odds to
call. Attack the blinds and play in position as much as possible and the
chips will come your way.
 The Bubble
Besides the final table, the bubble is my favorite situation in tournament
poker. This occurs when the next person out gets nothing and everyone
else gets paid. For example, if 36 people get paid, the person eliminated in
37th place is said to have busted on the bubble.
No one wants to play for a long time in a tournament and go home with
nothing. You can exploit the players that care about cashing for the min-
imum. Don’t worry about bubbling in a multi-table tournament. If you do,
you are forgetting that most of the money goes to the top few finishers, or
you are playing well out of your bankroll.
Some players finish in the top 10 percent of the field over 30 percent of
the time and lose money in the long run, whereas some make the money
only 8 percent of the time and are huge winners. The former drastically
hurt their chances of winning the tournament by blinding off while on the
bubble.
If you ever want to win at tournament poker, you must accept that you will
bubble sometimes. Exploit the weak players that are concerned about win-
ning the minimum. In fact, you should be happy when your weak oppon-
ents are rewarded in this way, as they will continue to play tight in future
tournaments. Just remember that you will be going for the 100 buy-in first
prize far more often than they will. As stacks get deeper you should play a
more standard strategy and almost ignore bubble concepts in small pots.
As each pot starts to take up a larger proportion of your chips, which will
be the case in most tournaments, you must drastically alter your play.
There is a tool called the Individual Chip Model (ICM) which uses fairly
intense math to determine each player’s dollar equity, which is how much
of the prize pool each chip stack is worth. The math is too difficult to per-
form at the poker table, so I will sum it up for you. ICM is normally used
in sitngos, where fourth place usually gets nothing and third place gets
paid, but you can also apply it to multi-table tournaments. The general
concept is that when there is a large pay jump looming, you need a much
stronger hand to call a shove than to shove yourself. This remains the pat-
tern throughout the rest of the tournament, as you will win more money
whenever a player busts. Even though a play may win you chips on aver-
age, it can still have negative expectation in terms of dollars, which is
what matters in the long run. Keep this concept in mind as you move for-
ward.
I start to adjust my play, sometimes drastically, when I get around 15 per-
cent of the field away from the bubble. So, if 36 people get money, bubble
play starts in my mind when we get down to around 42 people. If 1,000
people get money, bubble play starts when we are down to around 1,150
players. Some players start thinking about getting in the money way be-
fore I do. These players are usually super tight. Some of them will even
tell you they are going to wait for a strong hand or just fold until they get
in the money. Try to steal these tight players’ blinds every time from ba-
sically any position, especially if your table tends to let people steal. If
they play back at you, be willing to fold some huge hands. Sometimes, if
you act like you are strongly considering a call, they will even tell you
what they have.
In a $1,500 World Series of Poker (WSOP) event, which is known for hav-
ing extremely tight bubbles because the $3,000 cash for breaking the
bubble is worth a lot to most entrants, I raised A-Q from middle position
to 2.25 BBs out of my 30-BB stack and the big blind went all in for 12
BBs. As I counted out my chips to call, he said in broken English, as he
was from another country, “I have aces.” I asked him to repeat himself and
he again said he had aces. I asked why he said that and he said he wanted
to get in the money and didn’t want to risk going broke. I decided he was
telling the truth, which most amateurs do under pressure, and folded. He
flipped up the aces. I am glad he saved me 10 BBs. I am also glad he got in
the money because he will probably continue to play that way for the rest
of his life.
I also had the pleasure of playing in a $1,500 WSOP event with another
person that stated he was only going to play A-A and K-K and was going
to guarantee he got in the money. He claimed he only had $20 to his name,
and cashing for $3,000 would get him back on track. He proceeded to blind
off from 10 BBs all the way down to 1 BB. In fact, I raised his blind with
9♠-3♣ when he had 3 BBs left because I knew he would fold. You nor-
mally have no fold equity before the flop when the big blind has 3 BBs,
but situations like this occur occasionally. Pay attention and don’t pass
them by.
You can get away with some really weak re-raises on the bubble against
aggressive but not great players. Most decent players know they are sup-
posed to go out of their way to steal as many blinds as possible on the
bubble. You can re-raise them with basically any two cards if you know
they will fold a huge percentage of their range. If your stack is between 15
and 30 BBs, you can re-raise them all-in with a wide range as well. You
can’t fear going broke on the bubble. You must know your opponent well
before re-raising him all-in with nothing, but if you are confident in your
reads, you can pick up a lot of chips on the bubble, even with a short stack.
I was playing a $10,000 WPT event when an overly aggressive online
player raised to 2.25 BBs, I pushed from the small blind with Q-9 for 16
BBs and he folded. The very next hand, he raised again and I pushed with
8♠-7♠, this time for 21 BBs. He folded again. He raised a third time and I
was holding A♠-A♣. If I hadn’t pushed the previous two hands, I prob-
ably would have made a small re-raise to induce action, but since I had
already pushed on him the last two hands, I decided to go all-in. As soon
as the action got back to him he instantly called and proudly flipped up his
A♥-7♦. I doubled up and he bubbled shortly thereafter.
This goes to show that you really need to know your opponent. If he had a
great read on me, he probably wouldn’t have called. You can be pretty cer-
tain that you have an easy fold with A-7 in his spot, because few people
will go all-in three times in a row with weak hands. Also, I had to assume
he had at least something in order to raise a third time. This is just another
pitfall you must avoid on the bubble.
This also shows that you should tighten up if people are not letting you
steal on the bubble. There is no set rule that says you must try to steal
every pot on the bubble. One of the biggest mistakes great online players
make is assuming that everyone is trying to outplay them. They find them-
selves in large pots on the bubble against players that are just trying to
sneak into the money. They run into a few monsters and can’t understand
why they constantly lose on the bubble. They are playing too loose against
opponents that never bluff. If the table isn’t letting you steal, then don’t
steal. That being said, becoming a total nit and folding every hand is usu-
ally wrong. Maintain some aggression but stop raising every hand.
Occasionally you will encounter a player who goes out of his way to put
you in a tough spot on the bubble. To deal with this, you must have a great
read on your opponent and determine if he is trying to put a move on you
or if he actually has a hand. One incorrect read can turn a great opportun-
ity into a huge spew.
I have run into some pretty interesting leveling wars with great players on
the bubble in major tournaments. On the bubble in the WPT event in San
Jose, the reigning online player of the year raised 2.5 BBs into a tight
player’s blind from middle position. I was on the button with 8♠-7♦ and
decided to re-raise to 7.5 BBs. I knew the player of the year would be at-
tacking these blinds, as they were both tight, so I was pretty comfortable
re-raising him. The action folded to him and he four-bet me to 18 BBs or
so out of his 60-BB stack. I assumed he knew I was attacking his raise and
was good enough to do something about it. I had more chips than him, so I
wouldn’t bubble even if I lost. I also noticed that he had stopped breathing,
which usually indicates that a player is scared to get any more action. All
of this convinced me that the best play was to go all-in, so I pushed. He
thought for a while and folded. While stealing the blinds on the bubble is
supposed to be easy, sometimes players will try to make your life difficult.
I was on the bubble of a $1,500 WSOP event when I played a hand against
a young player I had never seen. I watched him play for a few orbits and
thought he was playing just well enough to get by. He raised to 2.5 BBs out
of his 100-BB stack and I re-raised with A-Q to 7 BBs out of my 80-BB
stack. He four-bet me to 25 BBs. I decided he was trying to put a play on
me since he was young. I went all-in and lost to his A-A. I picked up his
name through the table talk and looked him up online when I got home. He
regularly played $200 tournaments in his home town, which meant he
probably wasn’t capable of pushing there with a wide range. I made a bad
read because he was young and had a lot of chips. He probably only re-
raised in that spot with the nuts, which made A-Q an easy fold.
While I do suggest aggressive play as your default on the bubble, you
should not go out of your way to bust the bubble and allow everyone else
to get in the money. Sometimes, you actually want to stay on the bubble,
especially if your table lets you pick up the blinds every hand. This may
seem counterintuitive, but if you can gather more chips on the bubble than
in the money, there is no reason to end the bubble. Suppose you are play-
ing a $10,000 tournament where 18 people get money, with 18th place get-
ting $20,000 and first place taking $700,000. You are the chip leader
among 19 players, with 50,000 chips. Everyone else has between 7,000 and
15,000 chips. The blinds are 500/1000-100. If you are playing six- or
seven-handed at three tables, you should go all-in with any two cards if
you are first to enter the pot. Everyone else will be waiting around for the
bubble to bust. Someone who calls your all-in must win more than half the
time to break even. He gets nothing if he loses, and if he wins, he still
might not finish in the money, as he will have between 15,000 and 30,000
chips and could still go broke. Also, it doesn’t guarantee that he moves up
beyond 18th place.
They actually need around 65-percent equity to justify a call, which is sur-
prisingly difficult even if they know you are pushing with any hand. They
should only call with A-K and 8-8+. This means that when you have a
large stack on or very near the bubble, you should be using it to get a giant
stack. If the bubble doesn’t break anytime soon in the example above, you
can easily go from 50,000 chips to 75,000 with no showdown. You will
eventually be called and you will be way behind, but you will still be free-
rolling because of all the dead money you will have picked up.
I will go out of my way to prolong the bubble at a cooperative table that
lets me steal the blinds every single hand. Suppose everyone folds to the
small blind, who goes all-in for 7 BBs, and you have A-7 in the big blind.
While this would normally be a snap call, you should consider folding if
everyone is giving you their blinds. You will win around three sets of
blinds per orbit if you fold this hand because you can continue pushing. If
you call and lose, you have fewer chips, which means one failed steal will
put your stack on a par with everyone else’s, and if you win, you have an-
other 7 BBs but can no longer steal the blinds constantly. Either way, you
are unhappy. Fold in this spot and continue picking up the blinds.
Notice also that when you are close to or on the bubble, you need a much
stronger hand to call an all-in than you do earlier or later in the tourna-
ment. This is because your tournament equity doesn’t double when your
stack does. In the example above, if a 10-BB stack doubles to 20 BBs, the
player’s equity might increase from about $40,000 to $60,000. I made up
these numbers, but they are similar to what happens in the real world. To
call, you need a hand that is a heavy favorite against the pusher’s range or
you need great odds, which is rarely the case. Hence, you should push of-
ten and rarely call. You can profitably push a wide range on the bubble.
Your opponents can’t call without throwing away money.
Suppose everyone folds to the small blind, who pushes for 10 BBs. You are
in the big blind with 10 BBs as well. What range should you call with?
You need around 60-percent equity against his range to break even due to
the prize payouts. Suppose you know he is pushing every hand from the
small blind. You can call with something like 6-6+, A-8+ and K-Q. If his
range is tighter, you should call even tighter. This allows you to push a
very wide range on the bubble as long as most people are short-stacked
and unwilling to call without a very premium hand.
You may also be in situations where you want the bubble to end, such as
when the table is not cooperating at all. Suppose a short stack goes all-in
for 5 BBs and two players call. You are in the small blind with 7♠-6♠ and
20 BBs. I would call here every time if the big blind is not prone to push-
ing in these spots to get the pot heads-up, which would probably be a good
play. By calling with a hand such as 7♠-6♠, which tends to have equity
against every hand, you are locking up at least 25-percent equity in a four-
way pot, which is almost always a good thing. Fold if you have a hand like
K♠-2♣, which will often be dominated.
Notice that if you are abusing the bubble with a big stack, someone pushes
for 5 BBs and three people call, you should go all-in with any two cards.
You can usually get heads-up with 15 BBs dead, as the three callers will
almost always assume you have a strong hand and fold. Don’t be surprised
if they cuss you out after you flip up your 9♠-4♣.
There is one situation where I would suggest blinding off for a while to en-
sure you get in the money. If you have around 10 BBs and a player with
one or two big blinds will be taking the blinds soon, you should go out of
your way to not go broke. Your 10-BB stack usually won’t be worth much,
but it will be worth a lot more than a 1-BB stack. If yours is one of several
short stacks with 10 BBs or so, do not wait for one of them to bust out.
These other short stacks will often blind off to their very last chip, costing
you equity if you blind off as well. Waiting for them to bust is a huge mis-
take because you will lose any chance of winning the tournament.
Some players justify playing tight by saying they got in through a satellite
and the money means a lot to them. In order to be a great poker player,
money cannot mean anything to you. If I were on the bubble of a $1 mil-
lion buy-in tournament and bubbling would cost me $2 million in real
money, I would play my normal game because I know the proper strategy
is to play for first place. Winning the minimum should not be a good res-
ult in your mind. In fact, it should be somewhere between neutral and bad.
Even if you have $50 to your name and cashing in a tournament will give
you 1,000 times your net worth, you should still play good poker. If the
money means that much to you, you shouldn’t have played the tourna-
ment. Be smart and only play tournaments you can afford to play optim-
ally.
The bubble is a fascinating and troubling stage to play. I can’t stress
enough that you should not play to win the minimum. If you play great
poker, you will make money in the long run regardless of whether you
cash in any specific tournament. Pinpoint the players that are too tight and
raise their blinds whenever you have a chance. Gun for the players that try
to steal the blinds too often. Make sure you have a good read on your op-
ponent and think about his range of hands. Ranges on the bubble are either
very tight or very loose. Figure out who you are playing against and it be-
comes an easy game.
 In The Money
In most tournaments, everyone breathes a sigh of relief when they get in
the money. Sometimes people even clap and cheer. Getting in the money is
nothing to be proud of. Most tournaments will last at least a few more
hours, so being content with what little cash you have won makes no
sense. Your eye should be on first prize.
As soon as you get in the money, an unusual number of short stacks will be
ready and willing to go all-in. At this point you should tighten up your pre-
flop raising ranges a little because it’s likely that a short stack will shove
on you. For example, say you just got in the money and you pick up
9♠-8♠ in middle position. You have 50 BBs and everyone behind you has
between 15 and 25 BBs. This is an easy fold because everyone behind you
has a great stack for shoving. With A-J instead, you should be more than
happy to raise and call a push from one of the short stacks because their
ranges are usually going to be abnormally large, making A-J a decent fa-
vorite.
Some players who have large stacks from pushing people around on the
bubble may keep up the aggression, not adjusting their game at all. Be
very willing to re-raise them, especially if you have a great stack for a
three-bet push. Suppose one of these overly aggressive big stacks raises
from the cutoff and the action is folded to you in the big blind. If you have
between 20 and 25 BBs, consider going all-in with any two cards. I would
usually push a touch tighter, with something like the top 50 percent of
hands. Be careful to accurately estimate the aggressive player’s range. If
you think he is still raising wide when he has actually tightened up, you
could be making a huge blunder.
Most of the short stacks will either bust out or double up after a little
while. Despite this, most players’ stacks in some events will be only 20
BBs. If most people have a stack between 15 and 30 BBs, which is optimal
for re-raising all-in, you should raise fairly tight if they know you will go
all-in fairly wide. If they are all rather tight and don’t know they should be
pushing over your raises, feel free to continue raising with a wide range.
You can widen your range and attack the blinds often if most stacks are
deeper than 30 BBs.
As you get deeper in the tournament, some people will tighten up as you
approach a pay jump. In most tournaments, the payouts increase as groups
of nine players are eliminated. For example, if 45 people get money, 45th
to 37th will get the same amount, and 36th to 28th will get the same,
greater amount. When you get down to around 38 players, you can loosen
up even more against those that are concerned with moving up to the next
pay level. Remember that your goal should be to win, not to move up a
few more dollars.
You will sometimes play short-handed as players are eliminated. Normally
you will play nine-handed, but you may play as low as six-handed. My ad-
vice for playing six-handed is to play your standard nine-handed game and
pretend the first three players have folded. So, first position at a six-
handed table should use my opening ranges from the “Playing Poker” sec-
tion in Volume 1 for middle position. Most players go overboard, raising
and re-raising really wide once they get short-handed. Do not fall prey to
this temptation. You should be fine if you can steal the blinds more than
once per orbit.
Revert to your normal game after you get in the money and the short
stacks bust, constantly attacking the blinds and weak pre-flop raisers while
trying to put a lot of money in the pot only with a strong hand. If you can
keep this up, you will soon be on the final-table bubble.
 The Final-Table Bubble
The final-table bubble is similar to the money bubble except you are al-
ways short-handed, as there will be 11 people left playing either five- or
six-handed. This is similar to the money bubble when you are down to 19
people and only 18 get paid, but the big stack will have an even greater
edge. However, there is a huge difference between untelevised and tele-
vised final table bubbles.
Play your normal aggressive bubble game if you’re not on television; the
only incentive to make the final table is to say you made the final table,
which really doesn’t matter. This is because the payout jumps from 11th to
10th place usually are not that big compared to those later in the tourna-
ment. Remember that you are playing to win, not to take 10th place. This,
however, doesn’t mean everyone else is playing to win. Some players take
great pride in making final tables. Steal their blinds as often as possible.
Try to stay out of the way of players who are there to win, as long as they
aren’t getting too far out of line.
Televised final tables are entirely different. Most players dream of being
on TV. Most of them, including top professionals, go out of their way to do
so. I mean, who doesn’t want to be on TV? Because of this TV craze, you
should go out of your way to steal each and every pot on bubbles for tele-
vised final tables. The number of players who get to be on TV varies signi-
ficantly by tournament, but whatever it is, be aggressive right before you
reach that number. For example, the WPT puts six people on TV. When
you are down to seven or eight players, go nuts and steal as many pots as
possible. The WSOP puts nine people on TV. When you are down to 10,
steal to your heart’s content.
When you are on the TV bubble, if someone, especially someone who
wants to make the final table badly, plays back at you, get out of the way
quickly. He almost certainly has a huge hand. You can watch basically
every WSOP Main Event final-table bubble for the last few years and the
player that busted in 10th place got fairly unlucky. You can fold big hands
when things don’t feel right, especially if players are letting you steal
most of the blinds.
On these televised final-table bubbles, I generally raise to around 2.25 BBs
before the flop if most people aren’t short-stacked; I want to steal the
blinds often pre-flop and I don’t mind if the blinds call, because I will be
in position. Most people play straightforwardly on the final-table bubble.
If your opponent is willing to put a lot of money in post-flop, you usually
need two pair or better to continue unless he’s a maniac.
If you have a large stack on the final table bubble, you should be stealing
from everyone. If another aggressive, large stack raises, go ahead and re-
raise with a wide range as long as you are not committing yourself to the
pot. Also, go out of your way to raise the medium stacks. These players
usually assume they will make the final table if they are tight and wait out
the short stacks. If they have this attitude, steal as much as possible from
them. You do need to be a bit careful when stealing against short stacks,
especially if they have no fear of bubbling. If they are tight though, attack
them often.
If you are a medium stack on the final-table bubble, you are almost forced
to sit back and wait. If you have around 25 BBs, feel free to push over an
aggressive big stack’s raise with a wide range. Attack the short stacks as
much as possible if they are not fighting back.
If you are a short stack, you need to get to work. When everyone folds to
you, you should be going all-in with a fairly wide range if you have 10
BBs or less. Even picking up the blinds and antes is a huge boost to your
stack. Don’t be scared to go broke against an aggressive, big stack. Some
players fear the big stack because he can bust you. Remember that you are
playing to win, and you have to get some chips if you’re to have chance.
Keep your eyes and ears open to figure out how much each player wants to
make the final table. At the WPT event at Mirage that I won, a friend that
was watching me overheard the player on my direct right talking to a fam-
ily member about how his first and main goal was to make it on TV. Once
my friend relayed this information to me, I re-raised that player most of
the time when he raised before the flop. He folded every time. Without
this information, I would have missed a lot of opportunities to steal chips.
At the same time, I had Phil Ivey two seats on my left and he must have
thought I wanted to make the TV final table, because every time I raised,
he would re-raise me. After the second time, I decided he was using my
loose raising range as a great reason to re-raise me with any two cards. I
kept raising my wide range but every time he re-raised me, instead of fold-
ing, I went all-in. He folded every time. This happened a few times before
the final table bubble broke, and was the main reason I made it to the final
table with a big stack.
If you are constantly in each opponent’s head, you should be able to de-
termine what to do in every situation. Poker is not about playing your
cards. It is about playing your opponents. Once you realize most players
just want to be on TV, you can go out of your way to abuse them until
everyone is rewarded with a spot on a TV show. Most of the time, you will
be the one sitting there as the chip leader.
 The Final Table
Making the final table of a major tournament is a dream come true for
most amateur poker players. For a professional, the only dream should be
to win a major tournament. Your goal at any final table should be to gather
as many chips as possible before the blinds get too large to play a super
loose game. Once this happens, you simply need to tighten up, play a solid
short-stacked game and hope for the best.
The players usually get some sort of break once they make it to the final
table. Use this time to gather as much information as you can before play
resumes. Before every WPT final table I have ever played, I have watched
at least four hours of video on the big-name players I’ll face. I am sure
that this greatly increased my chances to win. I google every player to see
how much the money will effect them. Some players are billionaires and
some are near broke. Clearly, a billionaire isn’t worried about the money.
His only concern is to win. If a player owes $150,000 on his house, mov-
ing up the payouts enough to pay off his house will be his main concern. If
you spend enough time collecting information about each player, you will
be much better equipped to play with them at the final table.
I have had two pretty huge victories in the information war when studying
opponents. The first came when I learned that a player was $200,000 in
debt and desperately wanted to get out. It happened that fourth place was
right around $200,000. Sure enough, he started playing the final table
tight. I stole his blinds relentlessly and he never played back at me. Once
we got down to four players, getting the player out of debt, he became a
maniac, raising and re-raising every hand. I eventually made a fairly big
call to bust him. Had I not known about the debt, I may have missed the
big call to bust him as well as a few blind steals early at the final table.
A more recent success occurred during the $10,000 heads-up tournament
in the 2010 WSOP. I won my first round and knew I was going to play
Daniel Negreanu in a few hours. I didn’t have time to go home, so I was
just going to chill at the Rio until our match. I then remembered I had a
book in my bag that used examples from the NBC heads-up tournament.
Negreanu was involved in around five hands in the book. I read over all of
them and headed off to my match. I had a lot of good hands but on one, I
made a very uncharacteristic fold with top pair, bad kicker because he took
the exact line he had taken with the nuts in the book. I won the match in 20
minutes thanks to his making strong, second-best hands, but had I not read
that book, I may have lost a lot of chips with top pair, bad kicker earlier in
the match.
Once you get to the final table, assuming the big stack played the bubble
well, there will be one or two large stacks and a bunch of shorter stacks. If
you have a large or medium stack compared to the rest of the field, you
should generally tighten up once you make the final table. Attack the
blinds if you have a small stack and everyone folds to you. You simply
must get some chips to give yourself a chance to win the tournament. The
difference in payouts between 10th and fifth place is usually only a few
buy-ins, but the difference between fifth and first is huge.
As when the first bubble broke, most of the short stacks will go a little
crazy. From time to time, one of the big stacks will go nuts and give away
his chips as well. If you see someone getting out of line, buckle up and get
ready to get all-in against him as soon as you pick up a good hand.
For example, suppose everyone has between 10 and 30 BBs. Everyone
folds to the button, who has reduced a 50-BB stack to 10 BBs by raising
and re-raising weak hands. He goes all-in. The small blind folds and it is
up to you, with a 15-BB stack. What hands should you call him with? Most
likely, if he went from chip leader to being nearly out of the tournament,
his range is going to be wide open. I would assume he is pushing around
90 percent of hands. There are around 3 BBs of dead money in the pot, so
you have to call 9 BBs to win 13 BBs, meaning you would normally need
around 40-percent equity to call. However, you still need a much better
than breakeven hand because doubling your chip stack will not double
your equity in the tournament. I would estimate you need about 50-percent
equity to break even here, assuming there are no abnormally large or small
stacks. Remember, we need to do a little better than break even, so we
need something like 54 percent to profit here. I would call with 4-4+, A-
2+, K-7+, Q-9+, and J-10. Notice that even though he is pushing wide, I
must call with a tight range. As you get deeper and deeper into the final
table, pushing goes way up in value and calling goes way down.
If he is a super nit instead of a maniac, he will only push from the button
around 20 percent of the time, and I will only call with 8-8+ and A-J+.
Keeping a decent stack and utilizing fold equity is the way to grow a short
stack into a medium stack quickly.
Once everyone settles down and the short stacks bust, you need to revert to
your normal game. You should constantly pick on the players that are try-
ing to move up and avoid the better players. If everyone has a short stack,
play good push-fold poker and look for as many spots as you can to go all-
in from late position where you expect to have a lot of fold equity. Eventu-
ally, you will be sitting at a final table with only six players competing for
the grand prize.
 Chapter 2

Short-Handed Play

A great deal of tournament play is contested at tables with 9 or 10 players.

In this chapter we are going to consider situations where there are fewer
players at the table, from six right down to heads up play. Some online
tournaments are actually played out on six-max tables and, obviously, even
tournaments with the more normal nine- or ten-player tables will drop to
smaller numbers if you make it to the late stages.
 Six- to Four-Handed Play
In this book I consider play to be short-handed when there are between
four and six players at the table. Your goal when playing short-handed is to
pick up as many blinds as possible and to re-raise from time to time to
steal an aggressive player’s pre-flop raise. Don’t put a lot of money in the
pot against a tight player without a fairly strong hand. Be prepared to put a
lot of money in with a fairly weak hand against an aggressive player if the
situation calls for it. Determine each player’s range and act accordingly.
Short-handed poker gives many players headaches because they fail to ad-
just to individual players. As you play more hands with the same players,
you must constantly adjust to their adjustments so you can stay one step
ahead of the game. Some players think short-handed poker is about being
more macho than other players. If you can spot these players before they
make a ridiculous bluff, you can win a lot of chips. Short-handed poker is
about remaining calm while everyone else goes on tilt.
Tight players are sometimes referred to as “dead money” in a tournament
because they fail to adjust to the losing players. They sit around and wait
for a premium hand until they blind off. When the blinds and antes come
around much faster, as they do when short-handed, you have to raise a
little more often from late position. Failure to keep up with the blinds is
the reason why these players have little chance to win a tournament.
Loose-aggressive players become extra loose once the table gets short-
handed, which tends to get them in trouble. Despite their usually –EV play,
poor loose-aggressive players always have a chance to win the tournament
because they are aggressive, which is never a bad thing.
I play short-handed a bit tighter than most players out of position and a bit
looser in position, because you win more hands in position than out of pos-
ition. If you constantly raise weak hands out of position, you will land in
many tricky spots after the flop. For example, you can usually get away
with raising J♠-8♣ from first position at a six-handed table, but occasion-
ally you will flop top pair and run into a better top pair, which will usually
cost a decent number of chips. I would much rather raise 7-4 late than J-8
early because you gain a lot of fold equity in late position. When you raise
with hands like 7-4 from the button, you have to be aware that you are
merely trying to steal the blinds. If the flop comes J-4-3 and your oppon-
ent check-raises your continuation bet, you generally will need to fold. Ba-
sically, you should loosen up in position but don’t go crazy with huge post-
flop bluffs.
You’ll do well in all forms of short-handed poker if you remember to play
as if the table is full and everyone has folded to you. In the “Playing
Poker” section in Volume 1, I suggested raising 2-2+, A-2+, K-7+, Q-9+,
any suited hand where both cards are 9 or higher, offsuit connectors and
one-gapped hands down to 7-5 from the cutoff. This is a pretty wide range,
and I suggest you raise with this range from the cutoff whether the table is
four- or 10-handed. From the button you can raise with basically any two
cards if the blinds are tight, although you should usually fold hands like Q-
3, 10-4 and 7-2. This means that you should raise a wide range from the
button even when there are four players.
I also advised not to raise every hand from late position every time the ac-
tion is folded around to you. You can fold from time to time. You can still
fold when short-handed, but not as often as when 10-handed. You have to
raise every few hands just to keep up with the blinds. You’ll quickly fall
behind if you fold the button often.
Some players call too loosely from the blinds. Even short-handed, I only
defend my blinds by calling with hands that flop well, such as 5♠-5♣ and
8♠-7♠. I rarely call raises while out of position with hands like A♣-4♠.
You are usually better off re-raising these hands before the flop. Through-
out this book I have preached tight play out of position, and short-handed
play is no different. Play your normal, aggressive late-position game when
short-handed and you will have no problem.
 Three-Handed Play
You will always have the option of raising from the button when you play
three-handed, as you will be first to act before the flop. This huge advant-
age of always being able to play the button every round means you can ac-
tually get away with playing a bit tighter than most people think.
On the button in a three-handed game, if the blinds play fairly tight, which
they should, you should be raising around 80 percent of your hands. If the
blinds play back at you often, you can cut it down to about 50 percent.
Raising any less than this at a three-handed table is usually a mistake be-
cause you will basically be blinding off. As long as you keep raising and
firing out continuation bets, you will win more than your fair share of pots
from the button.
From the small blind, you should re-raise or fold most every hand you in-
tend to play. The big blind has a great squeeze opportunity if you just call.
If you know the big blind will rarely squeeze, you can call with a slightly
wider range of hands that flop well. If you are dealt a hand like A♣-4♠ in
the small blind and the button raises, you should always either re-raise or
fold, depending on how wide the button is raising. If the button folds, con-
sider folding a decent number of hands from the small blind. I would raise
something like 2-2+, A-2+, K-7+, Q-8+, J-9+ and connectors against a
generic opponent, which you will rarely face. I will raise every hand in the
small blind against a tight big blind. If he is loose and aggressive, con-
stantly re-raising you, feel free to limp and call his raises. This will let you
see cheap flops with almost a guarantee of decent implied odds. For ex-
ample, I would raise a tight big blind every time with J♠-9♠, but I would
consider limping with that hand against a loose, aggressive big blind. An-
other option is to raise and four-bet if he re-raises. Again, you must know
your opponent well, but if you have been paying attention at the final
table, you should have some kind of read on each player.
You can call a button raise in the big blind with most hands that flop de-
cently well. Re-raising is also an option. You can fold fairly often if the
button is not getting too far out of line. Fold hands like A-3 if the button is
tight, but re-raise every time if he is loose. You can often call the small
blind’s raises in position if the stacks are over 40 BBs or so. Basically, you
are looking to either hit a flop or get a flop that enables you to represent a
hand. For example, if the small blind raises and you call in the big blind
with 7♠-4♠, you should be very willing to either float or raise if the flop
comes 9♥-8♥-5♦. Pile on the aggression in spots like this because most
players can’t take the heat.
The effect of position becomes magnified as the game becomes more and
more short-handed. It will be tough to make too many mistakes if you play
loose and aggressively in position and tight out of position. I suggest you
play some six-handed sitngos online to get practice playing short-handed
with shallow stacks. The game will eventually turn into a push-or-fold
situation where the first person to go all-in usually wins the pot. If a tour-
nament becomes three-handed and everyone has a shallow stack, you need
more than normal equity to make a profitable call because of the prize
payouts. The difference between the second and third place payouts is usu-
ally significant, so you do not want to bust in third when you could have
easily snuck into second place.
For example, say you’re playing 200/400, the big stack has 10,000 chips,
you are the middle stack with 5,000 and the short stack has 1,000. The
short stack folds on the button and the action is on the big stack in the
small blind, who goes all-in. You need a very strong hand to call here.
Calling with Q-Q may even be incorrect, depending on how the table is
playing.
This situation is basically another bubble. In fact, at the final table, every
prize jump will cause some people to play as if they are on the bubble. I
tend to care about the prize jumps only after I get to fourth place or so, as
the previous jumps usually aren’t too large. Notice that if you are a big
stack playing a short and medium stack, as in the example above, you can
push players around on this three-handed bubble easily because the
middle-stacked player will be looking to outlast the short stack.
As the big stack, you may even want to keep the short stack alive so you
can blind off the middle stack. Suppose there is a medium stack of 5,000
chips on the button, a big stack of 10,000 chips in the small blind and a
short stack of 1,000 chips in the big blind playing 200/400. As long as the
5,000-chip stack is passive, the big stack should fold basically every hand
from the small blind if the short stack is not doing anything too wild. If
the big stack folds, he can go all-in on the next hand, winning the blinds if
the small stack folds or getting all-in with decent equity if he calls. If the
short stack shoves on the next hand, the big stack, which is now in the big
blind, can fold. On the next hand, he can steal from the short stack, then
again from the middle stack on the next hand. Basically, the big stack
should steal twice per orbit and give up his blind or get a walk when he is
in the big blind. Always look for spots like this to exploit because when
they come up, they are among the most profitable situations in poker be-
cause you stand to win a lot of chips with very little risk.
 Heads-Up Play
If you are fortunate enough to make it to heads-up play in a major tourna-
ment, you will probably be worn out. You will have been playing for five
days straight, and will now play heads-up for a huge amount of money. If
you face a competent heads-up player and you have no clue how to play
heads-up poker, you will quickly lose chips. Heads-up poker is full of vari-
ance. If the best player in the world played heads-up against an average
player and both had fairly short stacks, he would be lucky to win more
than 57 percent of the time in the long run.
You would be wrong to take this to mean that heads-up play is not that im-
portant. If you can win 57 percent of the time when playing for $500,000,
the difference between a $1 million first prize and a $500,000 second
prize, you will generate a huge edge. You will own 57 percent of that
$500,000, meaning you will win $285,000 and your opponent will win
$215,000 on average. If you are an expert heads-up player and you manage
to get heads-up one time in your life in a major tournament against a me-
diocre opponent, you will instantly win $60,000 in equity, which is a pretty
big deal.
Considerations like ICM go out the window when you’re heads-up because
there is no added benefit to moving up a payout spot. You both get paid for
second place, and you’re playing for the diffrence between second and
first. If you have an edge and think you cannot find a greater edge later in
a heads-up match, you should take it even if it is only slightly better than
neutral EV. Also note that if you think your opponent is vastly better than
you, which hopefully won’t be the case after you finish this book, you can
be correct to go all-in with a slightly negative expectation if you expect
your opponent to get you all-in with less equity later. I assume here that
your skills are at least equal to those of your opponent.
Only two styles work well at heads-up poker: loose-aggressive and super
loose-aggressive. This is because most of the time, neither player will
make a hand, meaning the person who picks up most of the pots when
everyone misses will win a decent amount of money. Suppose you have 50
BBs and raise to 2.5 BBs with 7♠-5♣ from the button. The big blind calls
with K♠-7♣. The flop comes Q♠-6♦-2♣. Your opponent checks and you
bet 3 BBs. Most opponents will fold in this spot, giving you the pot when
the flop doesn’t connect with their hand. This demonstrates the power of
position in heads-up poker. In tournaments there will usually be an ante in-
volved, which makes a loose- or super loose-aggressive style mandatory if
you want to win.
Heads-up poker is different than short-handed poker because the small
blind is also the button, meaning the small blind goes first before the flop
and last after the flop. The button’s edge increases as fewer players are in-
volved in the game, so you should play many more hands from the button
and fairly snugly from the big blind, assuming your opponent raises a
fairly tight range. The average winning hand can be quite weak when you
are heads-up. You should rarely fold top pair, and hands like middle pair
can extract maximum value, as most players call down fairly often with
bottom pair or ace-high.
Your style of play should depend entirely on your opponent’s play. There
are four basic types of poker players. Tight-passive players enter very few
pots and usually limp in. It’s usually correct to raise basically every time
from the button and continuation-bet every flop against these players.
Most of your profit will come from bluffing them out of small pots. Be
quick to get away from your hand if they raise. A good, loose-aggressive
player will slowly grind down these players, giving them little chance of
winning a heads-up match if they refuse to take a stand.
Most of your value against loose-passive players comes from value-bet-
ting relentlessly. Some will call bets on every street with king-high. If this
type of player raises on a later street, unless he is creative, which some
loose players are, you should respect him and release weaker holdings and
even some stronger hands.
Next is the tight-aggressive player. To play tight in a heads-up game is
vastly different than at a full table. A tight player in heads-up poker prob-
ably raises between 25 and 60 percent of hands from the button. Try to
raise more hands than he does from the button and play only strong hands
from the big blind. If you and your opponent play strong hands from the
big blind the same way, intending to break even in the long run, but you
win 75 percent of hands from the button versus his 50 percent from that
position, you will win in the long run. If he raises too often, you can re-
raise from the big blind with a fairly wide range from time to time, mostly
to prevent his becoming a loose-aggressive player. Most tight-aggressive
players play decently well post-flop, although some have huge leaks. For
example, some will raise pre-flop, continuation-bet every time, and play
straightforwardly after that, meaning they will give up with all their bad
hands and continue betting with good ones. Try to get to the turn against
these players, where you should have a fairly solid idea of their hand
range. The best tight-aggressive players will check behind on some turns
for pot control and to induce bluffs, so always be wary of them.
Last is loose-aggressive. These players raise between 60 and 100 percent
of hands from the button. They can range from being slightly looser than
the standard tight-aggressive player to full blown maniacs. I will discuss
maniacs first, as they are fairly exploitable. You should generally give a
maniac rope with which to hang himself. Do this by raising before the flop
with a wide range, which will make him think he can run you over. If you
hit a hand like middle pair, be willing to continuation-bet the flop and then
go into call-down mode, usually no matter how aggressive the maniac be-
comes. You can’t be scared to go broke against a maniac with hands like
middle pair because they are far ahead of his range. You should shy away
from raising a maniac on the flop with a strong hand because; unless he’s
really wild, he will fold most hands that are behind. Tight-aggressive play
works better than loose-aggressive against some maniacs because you will
want to start with a much better hand than they do on average. If your de-
fault strategy, which I will outline later, does not work, be quick to alter it
against a difficult opponent. Set traps and let him fall in the hole.
Some loose-aggressive players are good. In fact, they will be your
toughest opponents by far. They will aggressively attack small pots but
seem to always have a strong hand when a lot of chips go in the middle. If
this looks familiar, it is the style I have been advocating throughout this
book. You have to quickly figure out these players’ leaks and adjust imme-
diately. If they raise all hands before the flop, re-raise them liberally and
be willing to five-bet if they four-bet often. Most of these players continu-
ation-bet everytime, hence you should consider check-raising the flop of-
ten. Some loose-aggressive players will bet every street unless you put in a
raise. They are basically good versions of a maniac, so set traps against
them and go into check and call-down mode. Against the players that play
a slightly more loose style than the tight-aggressive players, play more ag-
gressively than they do before the flop, which will allow you to win more
pots than they do. Against good, aggressive opponents, most heads-up
matches will eventually turn into a crap shoot.
You must constantly pay attention to the shortest stack size in a heads-up
tournament. If your opponent has 100 BBs and you have 15 BBs, you are
playing 15-BB poker. If you have 40 BBs and your opponent has 60 BBs,
you are playing 40-BB poker. Sometimes you will have a very big stack
when your opponent has a small stack. When this occurs, you must play a
short-stack strategy to avoid numerous difficult situations.
As with every type of poker, you must constantly put your opponent on a
range of hands. This is a bit more difficult heads-up than at a full table.
Most players have a much wider starting range when heads-up, meaning it
is tougher to narrow it down to just a few hands. You should get a lot of
practice to better deal with this.
You can easily practice heads-up poker online by jumping into a heads-up
sitngo. You can play a nine-person sitngo to simulate a nine-handed final
table, but it’s not the same, as both the stacks and payouts are vastly dif-
ferent at a final table, making nine-handed sitngos decent, but not great
practice. Heads-up sitngos are great for practice because the payouts are
the same and you will eventually run into every stack-size situation. If you
are going to play multi-table tournaments, I suggest you play at least 1,000
heads-up sitngos as soon as possible. Play a loose-aggressive style and act-
ively seek the optimal way to play against each opponent. Start by playing
100 $5 heads-up games and then 100 games at the $10 level. Keep moving
up until you find a level that is no longer profitable. If you can’t beat the
$5 games, stay there until you can beat them for a decent win rate. Keep
moving up and you will eventually beat the highest-stakes heads-up
games, and you will be well prepared to play heads-up against any oppon-
ent in a major multi-table tournament.
 Heads-Up Pre-Flop Play
Your heads-up pre-flop strategy should depend almost entirely on your op-
ponent’s game plan. If he is playing rather tight, you should fold often
from the big blind when he raises, and raise every time from the button. If
he is raising every hand, be willing to re-raise with a wide range of hands
from the big blind while also playing fairly aggressively from the button. I
will outline my general game plan for when I first sit down to play an op-
ponent heads-up with no reads, which will rarely be the case in a tourna-
ment because you have been playing the entire final table with your op-
ponent. All information here assumes you are playing fairly deep-stacked.
There will be a later section on short-stack heads-up play.
I tend to be fairly loose and aggressive from the small blind. My normal
pre-flop raise is between 2 and 2.5 BBs. I will rarely make it more than 2.5
BBs before the flop because I want to be able to continue in the hand
cheaply if my opponent re-raises. Also, you shouldn’t mind if your oppon-
ent calls before the flop because you will have position throughout the
hand. I do not vary my raise size based on my hand. I usually raise to 2.5
BBs if I have more than 50 BBs and to 2 BBs with a shorter stack. I will
usually raise to 2.5 BBs against opponents that never fold to 2-BB raises
until I get down to around 25 BBs, when I switch back to raising to 2 BBs.
I generally raise about 80 percent of hands from the button, which includes
basically everything except hands like Q-2, J-3, 9-4 and 7-2. You want a
hand that is fairly connected and has some potential. Shy away from hands
consisting of a big card and a small card, which have huge reverse implied
odds. Consider limping with these hands if your opponent will allow it, but
I generally fold them. Speaking of limping, I rarely limp heads-up simply
because there is too much value in picking up the blinds and antes before
the flop.
If your opponent constantly re-raises or folds to your raises before the
flop, raise to a smaller amount so you can call his re-raises and play a 12-
BB pot in position. If my opponent tends to re-raise my pre-flop raises. I
will raise to 2 BBs with every hand I plan to play, call most re-raises with
hands that flop well, like K-Qs, 8-7s, 9-6s, 3-3 and J-10, and four-bet with
hands that flop poorly or are very strong, such as A-A, A-K, A-8 and K-4s.
Suppose you and your opponent both have 50 BBs and he has re-raised you
five times in the last 20 hands. You raise A-10 to 2 BBs and he re-raises to
7 BBs. I would almost certainly go all-in here. Notice that, once again, this
simply becomes a math problem. Matches where your opponent plays a
loose-aggressive style from the big blind tend to be settled by big all-ins
before the flop. Figure out when he is re-raising with a wide range and
then apply a lot of pressure.
If your opponent usually folds to your pre-flop raises, then keep raising in
position. You will steal a lot of blinds and eventually grind him down.
When he decides to play back at you, get out of the way. Suppose you and
your opponent both have 50 BBs. Your opponent has been tight for the en-
tire heads-up match. You raise to 2.5 BBs with A-10 and your opponent re-
raises to 9 BBs. I would just fold here and continue stealing the blinds.
There is no need to gamble with A-10 in this spot because you will eventu-
ally easily grind down this opponent.
If your opponent calls often from the big blind, you can either raise to
around 3 BBs before the flop in an attempt to gain some fold equity, or
raise smaller and assume you will be playing a 4-BB pot in position when
you are on the button, which isn’t really a bad thing. You will generally
win most of your chips from these opponents after the flop, when they
tend to call down fairly wide. If they only call bets after the flop when
they hit a strong hand, you can continuation-bet every time, as you will
pick up about 60 percent of the pots post-flop, for a huge win rate.
You should be fairly tight and aggressive out of position unless your op-
ponent is terrible. Call rarely from the big blind against most opponents
because you will be out of position throughout the hand. You are usually
better off re-raising or folding before the flop unless you have a hand that
flops well, like a small pair or suited connectors. If your opponent raises
very few hands from the button, feel free to re-raise hands that are well
ahead of his range. If he raises a very wide range, you can re-raise wide as
well. Just be careful not to pot-commit yourself with a weak hand.
Suppose you face a loose-aggressive player who raises to 2.5 BBs out of
his 40-BB stack. You are in the big blind with K♣-10♠. I will re-raise
every time in this spot, usually to around 7 BBs, and fold if he goes all-in.
Notice that even in this spot, you must be careful re-raising because you
only need to win 42 percent of the time when your opponent pushes. If we
assign your opponent the range of 2-2+, A-9+, K-10+, Q-10+, J-10, 9-8s
and 8-7s, you will have around 43-percent equity. If he has this range, you
are probably better off just calling before the flop, although it is still close.
If I had A-J instead of K-10, I would re-raise with the intention of calling
if my opponent pushed. Also, if my opponent has been fairly tight, I will
still re-raise K-10 before the flop, although I will definitely fold to a push.
Playing heads-up before the flop is really fairly simple. Tend to be loose
and aggressive in position. Out of position, fold most weak hands, re-raise
with strong hands and hands that are tough to play, like A-Q, A-4 and K-
4s, and call with hands that flop well, like 10♣-8♣ and 5♠-5♦. Always
put your opponent on a range of hands and make the most +EV decision on
every betting round. If you become excellent at determining your oppon-
ent’s range, you will quickly conquer most players.
 Heads-Up Post-Flop Play
Heads-up poker becomes quite difficult after the flop. It is tough to narrow
an opponent’s range because most players know to continuation-bet often,
which decreases the information you get from the most standard play on
the flop. Also, neither player will have much of a hand after the flop most
of the time, meaning that most bets will be naturally balanced between
value bets and bluffs. Value bets are much thinner than when there are
more players at the table. As with every other form of poker, figuring out
your opponent’s range is mandatory if you want to win.
When you raise in position before the flop and your opponent calls, you
should continuation-bet almost every time unless he is a calling station.
This is because he will miss the flop 66 percent of the time. Some oppon-
ents realize that you will miss with the same frequency and will play back
at you constantly on the flop. Tend to check behind against these players
with your strongest hands like sets, and also with weak hands. You can
also pot-control with hands like middle pair, although hands like top pair
should usually not be pot-controlled on the flop when heads-up because
most opponents will continue with much weaker holdings. You should usu-
ally value-bet a hand like middle pair or better on at least two streets, as
you almost certainly have the best hand.
Suppose you are heads-up and raise to 2.5 BBs out of your 50-BB stack
with K♠-J♦ from the button. The big blind calls and the flop comes
J♠-4♦-2♣. When your opponent checks, and he usually will, betting 4
BBs is very standard. Your opponent calls and the turn is 9♣. If your op-
ponent checks, bet again, this time around 10 BBs into the 14-BB pot. If
your opponent calls, then push if the river is a safe card. You should prob-
ably check if the river is a bad card, like an ace, queen or 10. If you have
10-9 instead of K-J, you should still continuation-bet the flop. When you
turn middle pair, betting is usually right because this hand can see a num-
ber of bad rivers. Check behind on the river most of the time unless your
opponent is a calling station. With A-6 instead of 10-9, bet the flop and
consider betting the turn, especially if you know your opponent would call
the flop with something like middle pair and fold to further aggression.
Feel free to bet the flop and turn with a total bluff like 7-6, but if you’re
called on the turn, only bet the river if a scare card comes. As you can see,
aggression is important when playing heads-up. However, if your oppon-
ent plays very straightforwardly after the pre-flop action, be willing to bet
once with a trash hand and give up because his check-calls indicate he has
a piece of the flop.
If your opponent check-raises on the flop, your play should depend mostly
on his playing style. Some players will check-raise the flop only with
hands like top pair or better, some with ace-high or better, and some with a
wide but balanced range. Pay careful attention to what your opponent
shows up with when he makes these plays. Usually, a player who is tight
pre-flop will also be tight when it comes to putting a lot of chips in the
pot. Loose players tend to be more willing to check-raise with a wide
range.
Sometimes the big blind will call before the flop and lead into you on the
flop. Most players tend to lead with hands that can’t stand much pressure.
Because of this, I usually raise these bets and continue firing on later
streets. Some players only lead with hands they have no intention of fold-
ing. Against these players, just fold to their leads unless you have a strong
draw or a strong made hand.
When out of position you will usually be in a fairly large pot, as you will
have often re-raised before the flop. When you re-raise before the flop and
your opponent calls, you should continuation-bet almost every time, usu-
ally between half and 3/5 pot. Tend to fold if you’re raised on the flop in
these re-raised pots unless you have a strong hand like top pair or you
know your opponent is capable of bluffing. If he calls and you have a
strong hand like top pair, you should usually check to induce a bluff on the
turn if your hand is not too vulnerable to scare cards. If it is, go ahead and
bet again on the turn.
Suppose your opponent raises to 2.5 BBs out of a 60-BB stack and you re-
raise to 8 BBs from the big blind with 10♠-9♣. The flop comes
10♣-5♠-2♦. Your opponent calls your standard 9-BB continuation bet. Go
into check-call mode if the turn is an overcard. Bet again for value if the
turn is a blank, with the intention of getting in if a loose, creative opponent
raises and folding to someone who is tight and straightforward. If you re-
raise with A-6 and the flop comes A-J-4, then continuation-bet the flop
and check the turn. Most players will not call down with less than an ace,
which means you are either chopping or losing. So, check the turn and
value-bet the river if he checks behind. Call down if he bets the turn.
Playing heads-up poker after the flop is all about figuring out when your
opponent has a hand he can fold and then applying just enough pressure to
get the job done. Stop bluffing as soon as you realize your opponent is
most likely not going to fold. Some players will call the flop with any-
thing. Fire a second barrel against these players on the turn. If a player
will never fold once he calls the flop, only bet hands that tend to be ahead
of his calling range on the flop. You should not run into too many prob-
lems playing heads-up if you are constantly thinking.
 Heads-Up Short-Stack Play
When you get heads-up in a tournament it’s likely that either you or your
opponent has a short stack. I usually assume a short stack heads-up to be
around 30 BBs or less. When this is the case, most of your post-flop skills
are useless and you will be forced to play a solid mathematical pre-flop
game. In fact, in two out of my three heads-up confrontations in WPT
events, we started with around 75 BBs each but played so long that when
the tournament ended, both players had less than 20 BBs. If you can’t beat
your opponent when you are deep-stacked, you must be prepared to shove
very wide when you get short, or he will slowly grind you down.
I suggest you reread the section in Volume 1 on playing when you have
between 15 and 27 BBs. Much of the information applies to heads-up
poker except you don’t have to worry about players being behind you
when you push over a raise. Most players will call with a wider range
when heads-up. That shouldn’t stop you from going all-in fairly often over
a loose raiser. If you know your opponent is loose-aggressive, you should
be pushing over his 2.5-BB raises anytime you have less than 25 BBs. If he
raises to 2 BBs pre-flop, as I suggest, you should only push over his raises
when you have 23 BBs or less. Push only strong hands if your opponent is
tight, as you will be able to grind him down by stealing the blinds more of-
ten than he does.
Suppose you have 20 BBs and face a player that raises every hand to 2 BBs
from the button. If he will only call your all-in with 4-4+, A-7+, K-9+ and
Q-10+, then what hands can you push with and still have an edge? Using
PokerStove, you can tell this range is something like the top 20 percent of
hands. This means he will call us 20 percent of the time. So, we have (0.8)
(3.25) + (0.2)[(x)(40) – 20] = 0, and x = 0.175. The 3.25 is the blinds plus
the antes plus the initial raise. This means you only need to have 17.5-per-
cent equity when called to break even. So, you can push with any two
cards against an opponent that raises this wide but calls fairly tight, be-
cause every hand wins more than 17.5 percent of the time against this
range.
Instead, suppose your opponent only raises 50 percent of his hands but
calls with the same range, meaning he will now call 40 percent of the time
instead of 20 percent. You now have (0.6)(3.25) + (0.4)[(x)(40) – 20] = 0,
and you need 38-percent equity to break even. Against the calling range of
4-4+, A-7+, K-9+ and Q-10+, you should push something like 2-2+, A-6+,
A-2s+ and K-10+, which basically means you should fold weaker hands
before the flop if you don’t have a lot of pre-flop fold equity and your op-
ponent is playing fairly tight.
Again, I suggest you play around with a poker hand equity calculator and
figure out which ranges you should be pushing in each situation against
each type of opponent. Studying things like this away from the table will
make you much more prepared than most players when the real money is
on the line.
Push or fold every hand before the flop when your stack gets down to 12
BBs or less. If you raise to 2 BBs and your opponent pushes, you will usu-
ally be getting the correct odds to call anyway with all but the worst hands.
Your pushing range should depend directly on your opponent’s calling
range. Some players will literally blind off to your all-in pushes unless
they get a strong hand. Shove against these opponents with any two cards
every time from the small blind. If these tight opponents limp a lot from
the button, you can push a wide range on them if you expect them to fold
often. Notice that if you steal their big blind every time and they let you
see a free flop when they are on the button, you will eventually make a
hand and stack them. So, don’t attack these limps every time because you
shouldn’t mind them limping.
If your opponent seems likely to call with a fairly wide range, you need to
be a little tighter with your pushing requirements, generally pushing hands
that have showdown value or that do well against your opponent’s calling
range. This range would include hands like A-A, A-K, A-2, K-2, 5♠-4♠,
9♠-6♠ and 10♣-9♠. Tend not to push hands with low cards, which per-
form badly when you’re called.
You can figure out which hands you should be pushing if you can estimate
your opponent’s calling range. Suppose you know your opponent will call
your all-in for 10 BBs with 5-5+, A-7+, K-9+ and Q-10+, which is around
20 percent of hands. You will have the equation (0.8)(1.75) + (0.2)[(x)(20)
– 10] = 0, giving us x = 0.15, so you need 15-percent equity when called.
So, if a player calls this tight, you should push 100 percent of hands. Even
if you have 15 BBs, you only need to win 26 percent of the time, meaning
you could still profitably push every hand. Instead, suppose your opponent
will call your 10-BB push with something like 2-2+, A-2+, K-2+, Q-9+ and
J-10, which is around 40 percent of hands. Now you would have (0.6)
(1.75) + (0.4)[(x)(20) – 10] = 0.37, meaning you need to push with hands
that win 37 percent of the time to break even. So, a profitable pushing
range against this opponent, who is much looser than most players, would
still be 100 percent of hands. This illustrates that when you get down to 10
BBs or less, you can push basically any two cards against someone that is
not crazy and will not call your pushes too wide.
Even though I should be pushing 100 percent of hands against most play-
ers when the effective stack size is 10 BBs or less, I still fold the very
worst hands like 8-2, 7-3, 6-2, etc. I want my opponent to think I can fold
from time to time, which will induce him to fold more often to my pushes.
It may also induce him to fold occasionally in the small blind.
Since we know it is profitable to push any two cards from the small blind
when someone has 10 BBs or less, what can we do to stop our opponent
from pushing 100 percent of the time from the small blind? All we can
really do is adjust our calling range. For simplicity, assume our opponent
will push only 80 percent of the time, which is probably like most good,
real-world opponents. When he goes all-in, there are 11.25 BBs in the pot.
We have to call 8.75 more, meaning we need 43-percent equity to call.
Plugging in the numbers, we should be calling with 2-2+, A-2+, K-2+, Q-
2+, J-6+, J-2s+, 10-7+, 10-6s+, 9-8, 9-6s+ and 8-7s. You may be thinking,
“Wow, I am supposed to call with a really wide range of hands.” Well, it’s
true. If your opponent is pushing very wide, you are getting the correct
odds to call with basically any decent hand and some junky ones. I tend to
cut out the hands with the worst equity, such as Q-2 and J-6, and call
slightly tighter. Also, you can play slightly tighter in the big blind if your
opponent folds too often from the big blind.
When you are playing the 10-BB push-fold game, never fold a hand like 2-
2, A-2, K-6 or Q-J if your opponent is pushing more than half the time.
These hands all have around 50 percent equity against a 50-percent push-
ing range, which is a little tight, meaning they are monster hands against
someone that is pushing really wide.
When either you or your opponent gets down to 5 BBs, be prepared to get
all-in often. You already know you should push any two cards from the
button. We now need to figure out the range with which we should call a 5-
BB push. If our opponent is pushing 100 percent of hands, seeing as we
need to win 38 percent of the time to break even, we can call with 2-2+, A-
2+, K-2+, Q-2+, J-2+, 10-2+, 9-2+, 8-4+, 8-2s+, 7-4+, 7-2s+, 6-5, 6-3s+, 5-
4 and 5-3s+. You should call with all but the absolute worst hands if you
know your opponent is pushing every hand. If he is pushing 50 percent of
hands, you should call with 2-2+, A-2+, K-2+, Q-3+, Q-2s+, J-7, J-3s+, 10-
8+, 10-6s+, 9-8, 9-6s+, 8-6s+ and 7-6s. While not quite as wide as before,
you should still be calling with all but the worst hands. So, when a player
gets down to 5 BBs, don’t be scared to call off with any sort of decent
hand.
When you are playing this push-fold game for $500,000, you need the guts
to push wide and call correctly. If you‘re lucky enough to get heads-up
with a player that calls very tight from the big blind, which some players
will, you should rarely call from the big blind when he pushes, and you
should push every time from the button. If you are unlucky and have to
play someone that pushes 100 percent of hands, don’t be scared to hop in
there and gamble. If you don’t, he will slowly grind you down and steal a
huge amount of equity. You will make money in the long run if you make
your opponent fold hands when he’s getting the correct odds to call. Not
too many people want to call a 10-BB push with J-9 with $500,000 on the
line. If you constantly put your opponent in this situation, the equity will
flow your way.
Some players are confused by what is referred to as the Nash equilibrium
chart. This states the effective number of blinds (the lesser of yours and
your opponent’s) with which you should push with a given hand from the
small blind in a heads-up situation if your opponent knows your cards and
will only call with hands that have the proper equity against them. Most
players look at this chart and see they should push 7-5o only if they have
2.6 BBs or less. They forget that their opponent doesn’t know their hand,
giving them a huge amount of fold equity, which is why pushing 100 per-
cent of hands for 10 BBs is basically always correct.
The chart is only useful for indicating when you should never fold. For ex-
ample, if everyone folds to you in the small blind at a full table and you
have K-2, you have to push if you have less than 8 BBs. Folding is always
a mistake unless you are in an abnormal bubble situation. The chart also
lists some hands as being profitable to shove with 20 BBs, such as 5-4s.
Some players take this to mean that you should always push with 5-4s
from the small blind when action is folded to you and you have 20 BBs or
less. The chart actually means that you should never fold the hand when
the action is folded to you and you have 20 BBs or less. If you have 20
BBs, you are probably better off raising and folding if you get pushed on
unless you are terrible at post-flop poker.
Also notice that pushing A-A from any position in any situation besides
the weirdest bubble situations is going to be +EV. That doesn’t mean it is
the most +EV option. As I stated earlier, you should push every hand in
this situation. Because of this, the Nash equilibrium chart is basically ir-
relevant as long as you know your opponents’ calling ranges. Most of the
time, your opponents will be calling way too tight, which means you
should be pushing any two cards.
Finally, if one player gets down to 10 BBs and the other has 100 BBs, the
latter player should not go out of his way to call the short stack’s push with
any two cards simply to try to end the match. Don’t play poorly against a
player just because his stack is short. Even if you are really close to win-
ning a title, don’t assume you have the match locked up. I have played a
few heads-up matches where I had my opponent very low and he came
back to win. The most notable was in the $20,000 NBC Heads-up Tourna-
ment. We were down to the final eight players and I faced Chris Ferguson,
who plays a standard, loose-aggressive heads-up game. I quickly figured
out his strategy and picked up a pretty big tell. I had a 7-to-1 chip advant-
age by the time the blinds got large. From there, he won three coin flips
and got it in when he had a bigger pair than I did to beat me. I played a
sitngo in which I had 13,000 chips and my opponent had 500. He pro-
ceeded to win every hand for the rest of the contest, handing me a second-
place finish. Crazy things happen in heads-up poker. Keep your cool and
play your “A” game all the time and you will succeed in the long run.
 Chapter 3

Developing Your Poker Skills

Poker is not just played on the felt. It is played throughout life. In fact,
everything you do that is +EV that your opponents do not do will make
you money in the long run. Also, everything your opponents do that is –EV
that you do not do will also make you money. For example, suppose you
lose to an opponent that put all his money in when drawing to two outs go-
ing to the river. You really only have two options. You can get upset, yell
at the player and curse God for making you so unlucky, or you can muck
your cards and get ready for the next hand. If you get upset, you let your
opponents know you just took a beat and are most likely on tilt. Giving
away this information will cost you money. If you sit there and be quiet,
you will gain money because most opponents will flip out whenever they
get unlucky. By not getting upset, you have won a battle in the information
war.
The rest of this book will teach you how to eat, sleep, breathe and act like
a professional poker player. You will find out how to learn, think and live.
You will learn how to deal with tilt, which is one of the major reasons why
technically sound poker players go broke. You will also learn about tells. It
is important to learn to read other players. I will reveal the tells that have
won me the most money throughout my career. I will also give you some
general tips about how to act and think during a tournament that most
players never even consider.
Finally, I will teach you how to be a professional poker player. It is not as
easy as playing technically sound poker. You have to learn how to manage
your life, which is something most poker players are miserably bad at. Be-
ing a professional poker player is a rewarding job that will give you nu-
merous freedoms most jobs simply cannot allow. But being your own boss
is tough. You have to learn to balance work and play. Most professional
poker players goof off too much and work too little. If you want to stay
ahead of them, you have to study and work harder than they do. I will
teach you about every aspect of my poker playing life and why the things I
do lead to success. Just remember that throughout life, everything you do
better than everyone else makes you money and everything you slack on
costs you money. Get ready for a lesson on how to be a professional poker
player.
 Learning
The next few chapters give some guidelines on how to continue learning.
Poker is an ever-changing game and this book will eventually become out-
dated. Also, if every poker player reads this book, you will have to find
new ways to adjust to take advantage of their exploitable plays. If you can
only do what you are told, you will always be one step behind the best
players. You have to be the innovator if you want to stay on top. You have
to be the one with the original ideas that work. The next few chapters will
point you in the right direction.
 Be Open Minded but Skeptical
There are more poker books on the shelves than you can count these days.
Unlike basically every other area of interest, you do not have to be accom-
plished to write a book. You simply have to know how to look intelligent.
Because of this, few poker books contain winning information.
Most of the great, older books have become outdated and largely irrelev-
ant because everyone has read them. I read one such book that suggested
folding A-K to a middle-position raiser. This is terrible advice for today’s
games, which are considerably looser than in 1970. Books by well-respec-
ted players often suffer because a great player may not be able to transfer
his knowledge to written text.
There are a few great poker books, written by well-known players and
lesser-known authors. Actively think about everything you read and pro-
cess all the information before assuming a suggestion is optimal.
An easy way to determine if someone is giving accurate information, espe-
cially in poker, is to check out the math behind his statements. If someone
says he does something because he feels like it is right or because that it is
how he has always played, you should do some research and get a math-
ematical answer. While some things, like tells, are based on feel and ex-
perience, most of the technical aspects of poker are based purely on math
and should be verified. For example, folding A-K to someone’s 2.5-BB
raise, no matter how tight the player, will always be a mistake in non-
bubble situations.
Do not listen to everyone you talk to on the various internet forums or in
your social group. While many great players are willing to share their in-
sights, most players like to make statements just to make themselves feel
important. Research everyone you take advice from. If someone lacks a
good track record, don’t take his suggestions as undeniable truth.
There is more than one right way to win at the game. It is very possible to
win at multi-table tournaments by playing a tight-aggressive, loose-ag-
gressive, or super-loose-aggressive game. The fact that I prefer a standard
loose-aggressive game does not mean that those playing another style are
wrong. If you analyze all information that comes your way, you will be
able to better add additional plays to your game and continue your growth
as a player.
 Apply What You Learn
While it is excellent that you have picked up this book, it will be of little
use if you do not apply what you read. There is a huge difference between
reading, understanding and applying. To just skim through a poker book
without understanding what you read is basically useless. In high school I
would be told to read a book, and I would be tested on my knowledge of
what I had read. I would finish reading a passage and have no clue what I
had just browsed over. I overcame this problem by taking my time and
pondering what I had read, pausing after each section to figure out how
one could apply the information to real-world situations. I remember in
college reading about how a TV works. I understood the concepts but had
no clue how to apply them. While understanding a concept is great, it does
you no good if you can’t apply the information to real-world problems.
The easiest way to apply knowledge is to take the information in small bits
and slowly implement it. Say you read a book on poker tells. Pick a few
tells you figure to be the most important and focus on them. If you pay at-
tention to just those few tells long enough, you will eventually learn to fo-
cus on them subconsciously and will no longer have to pay attention to
them. This will allow you to use your conscious brain power to focus on
other tells you have learned that are also important. The same applies to
all poker concepts, as well as most of life. Take things slowly, make sure
you understand what you are being taught, and learn to apply the vital in-
formation you have acquired.
I have taught quite a few amateur poker players how to go from losing at
small-stakes to beating the mid-stakes games in only a few hours of
coaching. While the basics are fairly easy to pick up, to learn most con-
cepts takes quite a bit of repetition.
One thing that takes time to grasp is how to work with stack sizes. When I
play poker, I see all stack sizes in terms of big blinds. I don’t see 3,000
chips as 3,000 chips. I see 3,000 chips as 10 big blinds at 150/300, and
then play accordingly. I notice this subconsciously, which usually enables
me to make a decision in less than a second. This was not a natural talent
and I should not expect it from any beginning player. It took me eight
years of constant practice and thousands of hours of play to develop this
skill. So, realize that some things will take time at first but will eventually
become easy.
When I teach students how to play multiple tables online, I never tell them
to change from playing one table to 24 tables at a time. It simply is not
possible for most people to make such a huge jump overnight. I suggest
they add one more table and play two at a time for a week or so until they
are comfortable. After a week of playing two tables, I suggest they move
to three, then after another week, to four. When you can play eight tables
at a time, adding an extra one will take little thought and will come easily.
If you add new challenges slowly, they are much easier to accomplish than
at one fell swoop.
 Have a Clear Mind
When you play a session of poker for a long period of time, your mind will
inevitably start to wander. If you have a clear conscience and have nothing
bad to think about, you will think about good things, which will help you
play your “A” game. I have done good and bad things in my life, and I can
tell you with 100-percent certainty that it is much easier to live with your-
self when you are a good person. Nothing is worse than having to look
over your shoulder or having something bad you did in the past pop into
your mind while playing poker. It is similar to the concept that it is easy to
tell the truth but tough to tell a lie, because you have to constantly make
sure you don’t get caught.
I also suggest you do not play poker when you are having arguments with
someone close to you, as this will divert your focus from the game. When
you show up to play poker and all you can think about is the fight you just
had with your girlfriend, poker will not be your main priority.
Numerous professional poker players bet on sports while playing in a
poker tournament. I was guilty of this in the past. What happens, espe-
cially if your bet is large, is that your focus shifts to the sporting event and
away from poker, causing you to miss most of the action at the table.
When I play live tournaments, I force myself at the start of each hand to
focus on the cards coming off the deck and pay attention to how everyone
appears as they look at their hole cards. This is usually enough to refocus
me. My mind gets a short break when the dealer is shuffling the deck
between hands. If you fold, continue paying attention to the players in the
hand. I usually focus on the players closest to me, as they will be the ones
I will play the most pots against. I have recently discovered an audio track
that I play on my iPod that is supposed to help you focus. It is basically a
series of different sound waves. I am unsure if it actually works, but I have
cashed four out of six tournaments since I’ve started using it, so it can’t be
too terrible. I also drink a lot of green tea, which helps me to stay calm.
Do everything you can to focus on the game at hand. When you go to play
poker, think about poker. Anything else will only cost you equity.
 Find a Study Group
Probably the most helpful thing I stumbled upon early in my poker career
was the Two Plus Two poker forum. This great forum allowed me to read
what some of the best players in the game had to say about numerous
poker situations and ask any questions I wanted. Now, I don’t use the for-
ums too often, as they have grown a lot and much of the advice isn’t cor-
rect. I currently post quite a bit on the forums of my personal training site,
www.FloatTheTurn.com. If you have any questions, feel free to ask.
Also helpful has been my large contact list of players that I talk to about
my poker questions. Even if you don’t have a huge contact list, there is a
ton of free information on the internet. All you have to do is make friends,
be sociable and try to soak up as much as you can from people that play
the game better than you. If you want to really help your game, talk to
people that play slightly higher stakes than you and have a group discus-
sion at least once a week. You can talk about the other players in your
games, specific hands, general questions or anything else that comes to
mind. Talking out your thoughts and getting feedback is a great way to in-
crease your win rate and move up the ranks faster.
I also find it helpful to have friends that I consider equal or better than me
watch me play poker online. I also watch them play, which is quite useful.
To be able to ask someone questions in real time and discuss hands as they
take place is invaluable. It will teach both of you to think about poker
more clearly, assuming you are actually studying and not just goofing off,
which tends to happen when poker players get together. Make sure every-
one in your group wants to improve.
 Learn to Think for Yourself
There seem to be two types of people in the world. Some do what they are
told and the rest think for themselves. I am pretty confident that the school
and university system in America teaches students to do what they are
told, which is not good if you want to be a poker player.
One of the greatest qualities an employee can have is to do what he is told.
In poker you are your own boss and you have to figure out what to do on
your own. You have to set your schedule, manage your money, work on
your game, develop new plays, etc. You should seek help in most of these
areas. Relying purely on yourself in the poker world is usually not a good
idea. You may need to talk to other players about what you are doing
wrong or ask their advice on bankroll management. However, you can de-
termine most answers by giving a problem some thought.
Poker forums are a great learning tool, but do not rely solely on them.
While it’s nice that other players say you are playing well, you must be
able to determine this for yourself, and if you make it high enough in the
poker world, your friends will also be your enemies. It would be foolish to
assume your friends would give you optimal information if you were con-
stantly butting heads at the poker table.
Thinking outside the box will also help you in life. I am great at getting
things done around my house because I figure out ways to do everything in
the least amount of time, whereas many people approach chores randomly.
You must also find people to help with things you are not good at, like
buying a house or investing your winnings. If you can’t figure out if a so-
called professional is competent and is looking out for your best interests,
you can put yourself in a terrible situation. If you learn to think for your-
self, you will be able to deduce the correct play in most situations, both in
life and in poker.
 Coming Up with New Lines
Most poker players take the same line with each type of hand almost every
time. In fact, that is what I suggest doing in Volume 1. But you should vary
your play so good players can’t figure out what you are up to.
One way to do this is to simply take weird lines that make little or no
sense. Suppose you raise with 9♥-8♥ and the player on the big blind calls.
Assume you are around 200-BBs deep for the following examples. The
flop comes J♠-6♥-2♦. Your opponent checks and you make a standard
continuation bet. The turn comes the Q♠.

You could make another continuation bet here of around 2/3 pot, but what
would happen if you bet 1/3 pot or twice the pot? If you bet 1/3 pot, you
should expect to be called often. You can then bet around the size of the
pot on the river and almost always get a fold, as most players will assume
you made your hand on the turn and bet to sucker them in and try for a
large bet on the river. If you bet twice the pot on the turn, most players
will be hard pressed to call with a jack or a 6, which are their most likely
holdings. It is also almost impossible for them to have a strong hand un-
less they slow-played a set or hit a queen with exactly Q-J. Both of these
plays should work almost every time if used sparingly.
You can also take strong lines that you might not normally take, assuming
your opponent will give you credit for a monster. Suppose someone raises
and you call with J♠-8♠ on the button. The flop comes K♠-Q♥-8♦. Your
opponent makes a standard continuation bet and you call. The turn is the
4♦.

Your opponent makes a standard 2/3-pot turn bet. At this point, you almost
certainly have the worst hand. You usually have outs, but aren’t getting the
right odds to call. Instead of simply folding, you could raise, hoping to
force your opponent off a hand like A-K or K-J. Most players will fold to a
turn raise with all but the most premium hands. You must know your op-
ponent, as some players will call with A-K but give up if you blast away
on the river. You might wonder why you shouldn’t call the turn and raise
the river if he bets again. If you call the turn and your opponent checks the
river, he could easily be check-calling with a hand like top pair. If he bets
the river, he could put you on a missed draw and call one more bet. But
when you raise the turn, you say right away that you have something good
and may be willing to fire a huge bet on the river. You are using a turn
raise to commit your opponent to calling a large river bet as well, whereas
if you raise the river, he can call knowing that he won’t face further pres-
sure.
I was playing the $10,000 WPT event at the Hollywood Casino in Indiana
when a pretty weird hand came up. A very good, well-respected player
raised from middle position to 500 out of his 40,000 stack and I three-bet
on the button to 1,400 with Q♦-9♦. He had been raising a ton of pots but
seldom played back when re-raised except by me. I had called his pre-flop
raises quite a bit in position and re-raised only once before over about four
hours. He called and the flop came A♠-A♣-4♠.

He led out for 1,200. I decided that he likely didn’t have an ace because if
he did, he would probably take a more standard line and just check. But
this player is known to be smart and very tricky, so I couldn’t totally count
out an ace. If I had an ace though, how would I play it from here? Raising
would be silly. He would most likely fold all of his weaker pairs and prob-
ably his flush draws, as he knew I probably wouldn’t pay him off for too
many chips if he hit his flush. So calling was the only option. I could fold,
but that was a bit weak and would confirm to him that I was going to let
him run me over. Finally, I had a few outs to the queen and 9 just in case
he had a 4, allowing me to go into call-down mode if I thought that was
optimal.
I called and the turn was the 6♦. He bet 2,600. At this point, I would nor-
mally throw out a raise with a good ace for value. If he had an ace, he
would certainly bet the turn, but because he bet the flop and turn, I thought
he was trying to represent the ace. I had to pick between raising the turn or
floating one more time and raising the river. I thought he would find a
river raise odd. If I had something like A-J, raising the river wouldn’t
make much sense because he could call with very few hands that I beat.
So, I decided to raise the turn to 8,000. The raise didn’t need to be large
because the line I took was so powerful. If he called or re-raised, I would
have been done with the hand, as he would have to be suicidal to find a
call with something like 5-4. He thought for a while and folded.
When you are playing against tough, aggressive, smart opponents, you
simply have to combat their weird lines. If you let them get away with
every odd play they make, they will win every pot from you. If you see
them do something that looks like a play, it probably is, and you should
determine how to optimally attack it. You will have no problem with this
if you can constantly figure out hand ranges.
 Chapter 4

The Mental and Physical Approach

Poker is unlike most games in that you must think about many things be-
sides just playing cards. If you pick the wrong opponents, you will lose
money. If you pick the wrong time of day to play, you will cost yourself
money. If you play too much, you will decrease the amount of money you
can win. We will cover these topics and many others below.
 Opportunity Cost
Everything you do in life will cost you something. When you skip your
poker session to hang out with friends, not only do pay the cost of going
out, but you also forgo the money you would have earned from playing
poker.
To understand this concept, think of poker in terms of your hourly rate. If
you play a tournament and win $1 million, you didn’t actually win a mil-
lion dollars that weekend. You need to average your wins and losses over
the hours you’ve played. During the year when you won that million dol-
lars, you may have played 1,000 hours of poker and cashed for $500,000
total, after you subtract your buy-ins, meaning you made $500 per hour,
not $1 million in a weekend.
Assume you can make $200 an hour playing poker online. If you take a
night off and go out with your friends, you may spend four hours at a club
and spend $200. So, you spent $200 and you gave up the opportunity to
make $800 playing poker, costing yourself $1,000 total. You must decide
if taking that time off is worth $1,000.
When I first started grinding sitngos, making that $200 per hour was quite
valuable to me. Consequently, my social life was nonexistent. Since then, I
have learned about what I will call happiness EV. This is the imaginary
dollar value you place on happiness. For example, going out on a date with
someone of great interest to you may be worth $20,000. So, except in the
rarest situations, you should go out with that person. If you value going
out with people you don’t particularly care for at $100, you should prob-
ably skip that, assuming you can make much more than that playing poker.
I do not recommend that you not have a social life. As you hang out with
people less and less, you will notice that you start to miss these social in-
teractions. This will cause the happiness EV you gain from being around
people to rise to the point that you no longer care about the money you
could be making. Basically, figure out what makes you happy and do that.
You might easily take many of the above concepts the wrong way. Think
logically about them. For example, if you play live poker at a casino and
your regular game only runs from 6 p.m. until 4 a.m., your time from 4
a.m. until 6 p.m. is worth much less than the time spent playing poker, be-
cause the game isn’t running. Hence, you should spend your nonworking
hours doing things that increase your happiness EV. Poker players that
play only tournaments are often great at this. They will play every major
tournament but will enjoy life whenever a tournament is not running.
You need to have a well-balanced life, spending time working and also
having social interactions. I have seen many poker players become ob-
sessed with making money, only to get burnt out, reducing their hourly
rate to zero. I have also seen my peers become so engrossed in nightlife
that all they do is party, making their hours spent working drop to zero. So,
have a well-balanced life and try to put a value on things. Just make sure
those values are realistic.
 Game Selection
No matter how well you play, you should expect to lose in the long run if
you play with people better than you. For example, if you are the ninth
best player in the world and sit in a game with the eight people that are
better than you, you should expect to lose. If you are the millionth best
player in the world and are playing with the 2 millionth and 3 millionth
best players, you should be a pretty big winner. Game selection is usually
talked about in reference to cash games, as you do not pick your seat in a
tournament. There are, however, a few situations where game selection is
key in tournaments.
When playing sitngos, especially at the higher buy-in levels, be careful not
to sit in a game full of professionals, as even if you are slightly better than
them, you could still lose due to the rake. Avoid playing heads-up sitngos
with people you know to be better than or equal to you, as you will both
lose the rake.
There are a few ways you can use table selection to your advantage in
multi-table tournaments. A few live tournaments, particularly the $5,000
buy-in non-main events in Vegas, are abnormally tough. These tourna-
ments usually have very small fields full of professionals. If you do not
have a giant bankroll, I suggest you skip these events. There are similar
events online, especially the biggest buy-in events that do not have satel-
lites. The opposite of this is also true. Say you have $10,000 in your bank-
roll and normally grind $30 to $100 buy-in tournaments online. Every
Sunday, a slew of $200 buy-in tournaments with 10,000 players are filled
with satellite winners who usually qualify for a few dollars. You should
usually play these tournaments, as you will have a huge return on invest-
ment (ROI). There are also a few $200 events every Sunday that have no
satellite qualifiers. Given the same $10,000 bankroll, avoid these events
because your ROI will be fairly low.
You can also use the idea of table selection when you are moved to a table
that is unfavorable for you that you know will break soon. I was in this
situation at the end of day three in a WPT event at Borgata. Most tables
were very soft except for mine, and I knew we would be ending the day
and getting a new table draw in around 45 minutes. I decided to not get in-
volved in any big hands and wait until the next day, when I drew a much
better table. When this situation arises, just play tight ABC poker and wait
for a more favorable situation.
 Patience
Patience is important for numerous reasons and can be applied to basically
every aspect of your poker game, as well as your life. The main time you
need to be patient is when you are getting no playable hands for hours on
end. While you can still play a few poor hands profitably as bluffs when
you aren’t getting many hands, you shouldn’t try to run over the table.
Also, when you are card dead, don’t look frustrated or annoyed with the
situation, as people may start to think you are on tilt, greatly decreasing
your bluff equity. I remember a few times when I simply got 9-2, 8-4, 7-2,
etc., over and over for six hours. I made a point to steal the blinds every
once in a while. Eventually you will get a hand to make something happen.
That being said, you should usually not blind off in a tournament. I have
only blinded down from 20 BBs to around 5 BBs one time in the last year
and that was because every pot was raised in front of me and I had nothing
every time. You will usually find something to work with.
Amateurs also lose patience regarding bankroll management. Most players
look at the stakes above where they currently play and think they can beat
those games. They feel like the only thing holding them back is the size of
their bankroll. Some players decide to gamble and move up too quickly,
drastically increasing their risk of ruin. While some of these players will
move up much faster than normal, most will fail, not only because they are
playing on a short bankroll, but because they overestimate their abilities.
One of the most important times to be patient is during a downswing. I
have lost 40 tournaments in a row at times. I was playing well, but I lost
everytime I got all-in. If you play a lot of poker, you must learn to expect
and accept losing for long periods of time. Make sure you are playing cor-
rectly when this occurs, not tilting and studying as much as possible. The
worst thing to do is to force the action by ramping up the aggression so
you are playing basically every hand to the river for all your chips. In-
stead, relax and realize that variance is the reason why poker is so profit-
able.
 Take Your Time
Once you learn to play fundamentally sound poker, you should know what
you are going to do in most situations. Before the action even gets to me, I
know what I am going to do in a hand, as pre-flop situations are usually
fairly simple. The problem with acting quickly is that when you do need a
little time to think, your opponents will know you have some sort of tough
decision. For example, you know you are going to raise A-A just about
every time, so if you raised it instantly from the button, but you thought
for five seconds with 7-4o, your opponents would quickly figure out what
was going on.
I generally wait around three seconds before I do anything pre-flop, and
eight seconds for post-flop plays. You can change the numbers to suit your
needs, as I play faster than most players. It also helps to think about what
you are going to do before the action gets to you. Say you flop a flush
draw and there are two people in front of you. Figure out what you are go-
ing to do if they check to you, if one player bets and the other folds, one
player bets and the other calls, or one player bets and the other raises. You
will be amazed at how easy this becomes once you get in the habit of
thinking during every hand.
Taking a little extra time can also help you make better decisions. Some-
times, just waiting an extra few seconds will let you pick up on a tell you
wouldn’t have seen if you had acted quickly. I know two professionals that
wait until someone gives off a tell before they act. I wouldn’t go that far,
but it seems like waiting just a little while, especially when the pot gets
large on the later betting rounds, is very +EV.
The more you are emotionally connected to your tournament life, the more
time you will take and usually, the worse decisions you will make. If you
are not emotionally attached to a tournament and you think very logically,
thinking everything through is rarely bad. Try to think of every hand you
play as just another hand. It is your job to play it optimally.
 Dealing with Loss
Losing is never enjoyable. I do a few things to minimize the pain. Most
people never give themselves a chance to make it as a poker player be-
cause when they lose, they get sad, tilt or quit. The most important thing
you can do when playing tournaments for a living is to deny yourself an
emotional connection to any tournament. People often talk about their
“tournament life” and how it is of the utmost importance to preserve it.
They usually blind off, losing any chance of winning a tournament they
might have won if they had risked death a few times. I think of a poker
tournament as just another of the thousands of games I will play in my
life. I probably developed this mentality from massively multi-tabling
sitngo tournaments when I was first grinding up my bankroll. When I lost
a game, it was no big deal at all. I would just open up another table. Now
that I play mostly live tournaments, it is a little different because I have to
fly across the country to play another game, but the concept is the same.
Hopefully you can see that a tournament should just be a tournament. It
should not define you as a person. Losing a string of poker tournaments
does not make you a loser at life, and winning a few does not make you a
winner at life.
Play well within your bankroll. Players who complain the most about
losses are usually playing well above their means. For example, if you
have a $1 million bankroll and lose a $10,000 tournament, it really isn’t
that big of a deal because you still have 99 buy-ins left. If you have a
$5,000 bankroll and lose a $1,000 tournament, you’ve just lost 20 percent
of your bankroll, and this can cause great emotional trauma. The solution
to this problem is to be smart and play within your bankroll.
Learn to play well and to be confident in your game. I recently lost a tour-
nament that mattered a lot to me. In the WPT main event at Foxwoods, six
months after my second WPT title, which I also won at Foxwoods, I bus-
ted in 55th place. A win would have given me my third WPT title, made
me the first player to win back-to-back main events at the same casino and
made me a huge favorite to win the WPT Player of the Year title two years
straight. Instead of making history, I lost, but I am fine with the result. I
played my “A” game and made good use of every situation. That usually
will just not be enough to get the job done. Once you accept that some-
times there just isn’t anything else you can do, you will learn to accept
losing.
Like most people, poker players do not like to lose. I am certainly in that
large group of people. Studying the math behind poker tournaments may
help you get accustomed to losing. If you play 1,000 tournaments, even if
you make the money frequently, you should only expect to do so around 20
percent of the time, which means you will miss the money 80 percent of
the time. I only get in the money around 13 percent of the time, which
means 87 percent of the time I walk away with nothing. However, when I
do get in the money, I usually have a large chip stack and am a contender
to win the tournament.
My last suggestion is to get some experience. It is hard to know what a
long losing streak feels like until you have been there. I have lost around
$150,000 at poker in two different years. While this seems like a huge
amount to lose, I have also won $2 million in two different years, which
more than makes up for it. I actually feel lucky that I had a poor first year
as a live tournament pro. If I had started off on a huge winning streak, I
may not have been able to handle the stress had I started to lose every
tournament. Many young players start their careers strong and end up go-
ing broke because they have no clue how to handle losing streaks. If you
know a losing streak will come at some point, you can handle it when it fi-
nally strikes.
 Tilt
Most people think of tilt as going crazy and bluffing off your chips when
you know it is -EV. I think of tilt as any time I am not playing optimally.
There are numerous types of tilt, most of which many professionals are
unaware of. Pay close attention to this chapter because tilt is the main
reason why technically sound players fail. You will often see what is re-
ferred to as a blowup, which is when a pro spews away his chips on TV.
That is the person you do not want to be. Some of the biggest winners are
not the most technically sound players, but they play their best all the
time. I am quite confident that if I had less control over my emotions, I
would not be where I am today.
The most obvious type of tilt is what I call standard tilt. This is when you
become angry. When you get A-A all-in against 9-3o and lose, it is tough
to not be at least a little upset. Less known is what I call happy tilt. This is
when you win a few hands in a row, start thinking you are invincible and
proceed to play hands you should fold. I have often seen professionals win
a few hands and then lose their entire stack. They usually claim they were
on a rush, which is when you win a string of hands. The problem with a
rush is that you can only see it looking back, not forward, so you should
never think about a rush while playing. To me, a rush is just a string of
hands in which you run well above expectation, not some mythical stroke
of luck where the poker gods favor you, and only you.
The easiest way to minimize your anger, allowing you to play your “A”
game, is to never go on tilt. While this may seem difficult, it becomes
standard with proper training. When I used to play over 150 sitngo tourna-
ments in a day, there would be times where I would get all the money in
good 10 times in a row and lose every time. This alone was enough to de-
sensitize me to tilt. Since most of you probably have no desire to be a
sitngo grinder, I will tell you a few other ways to learn to not worry about
results.
Standard tilt arises when the results are not those that you want. This can
be from being outdrawn, getting the money in poorly, losing a sports bet
during a tournament or having an argument with your significant other.
When something goes poorly, especially in poker, there is usually no way
for you to go back in time and reverse the result. You simply have to live
with it. Playing like an idiot certainly will not solve the problem. The only
thing that may reverse your loss is patient play.
Assuming you are a good player and get all the money in as a favorite of-
ten, I suggest you look at your equity instead of the results when things go
poorly. If you win a 1,000-chip pot, you rarely will have had 100-percent
equity. Assume you get it in with A-K vs. 2-2 for that 1,000-chip pot. You
will win about half the time, which means you will lose the other half of
the time. Assuming there is no dead money in the pot, you will break even.
Breaking even, whether you win or lose, is nothing to be happy about. That
being said, it isn’t anything to be too sad about, either. If you get all the
money in with 70-percent equity in a 1,000-chip pot and you only put in
500 of those chips, you will gain 200 chips in equity. If you lose the hand,
you should not be upset. Instead, you should realize you won 200 chips in
equity and be happy. Hopefully this better illustrates why losing when you
are a favorite is not a bad thing. Being result-oriented, i.e., being happy
when you win a pot and sad when you lose one, is a sure way to either go
broke or crazy.
Learn to not let results affect your life. If you lose a pot, you simply lose a
pot. You are going to lose a lot of pots throughout your life. If you get up-
set every time you lose a pot, you are looking at a lifetime of misery.
Learn to be detached from this misery and realize that losing is part of the
game.
You can also work on tilt control in everyday life. Say someone cuts you
off while driving. Yelling, honking and getting upset will do nothing ex-
cept reinforce those immature behaviors. You really only have two options
that produce meaningful results. You can either ram the offender’s car
with yours, get out of your car and try to kill him, which is probably a bad
decision, or you can let it go. You can’t take personally what happens to
you in life, and especially poker. Those that take do will make irrational
decisions that can cost them their car, life or chip stack.
Become a laid-back person. Some people are quick to get upset. I am
lucky because I naturally have a fairly laid-back personality. Not too much
bothers me because I realize some things are out of my control and I must
accept them the way they are. Many people are the total opposite. Once in
a tournament I saw a player get mad because the dealer straightened out
his big blind, which was a pile of chips randomly thrown into the pot. The
player told the dealer it was not his job and started cursing at him. The
dealer called the floorman and the curser got a 10-minute penalty. He
came back 10 minutes later and went broke when his 8-3 ran into A-A on
an A-7-3-9-J board. Bad beat.
Don’t complain when you lose hands because it reinforces the idea that
you are unlucky. If anything, you need to reinforce the idea that you are a
great poker player and you make +EV plays, not that you are the king of
losing big pots. Once you lose a pot, those chips are no longer yours. You
simply have to play the stack you are left with. A young kid in a WSOP
event called a raise from the small blind; the big blind called as well. The
flop came A-7-2. During this hand, the young kid had a huge stack, almost
half the chips at the table. He checked, the big blind bet, the initial raiser
folded and the young kid called with A-10. The turn was a jack. Both play-
ers checked. The river was a 6. The young kid with A-10 bet and the big
blind raised. The young player called and lost to 6-6. He instantly flipped
out, saying how bad the player with 6-6 was, and how unlucky he was to
lose to a player with two outs. He failed to realize that he should have fol-
ded the river because few people raise the river here as a bluff, and his top
pair, bad kicker was a bluff catcher. He proceeded to go on super-tilt and
gave away his entire 300-BB stack within an hour, all the while talking
about how unlucky he was. In reality, he simply had no clue how to lose a
hand.
Another way people react when they are on standard tilt is to tighten up
and only play premium hands. While this is much better than trying to
play every hand, it is still bad, as you are no longer playing to the best of
your ability. As soon as people notice you are playing overly tight, they
will pummel your blinds and put you to a tough decision on every hand
you play post-flop. After you lose a big pot, strive to play your standard
game.
One of the most powerful plays in poker is to act like you are on tilt when
your opponents would be on tilt if they were in your situation. Say your K-
K just lost to 9-7o and cost you half your chips. If your next hand is
strong, you can raise and re-raise as if you are on tilt. Most opponents will
be quite willing to put a large sum of money in with weak hands because
they assume their hand is well ahead of your tilting hand range. Little do
they know that your range in this spot is fairly tight, as you have a
premium hand, and they will be investing their money poorly.
When playing heads-up or short-handed, such as at the very end of a tour-
nament, tilt tends to attack players more quickly than when playing full-
handed. This is because you play many more hands per orbit, which means
you are going to lose hands more often. Be careful to never let a losing
hand bother you. Realize also that short-handed poker is a wild ride. When
things go badly, just remember you are playing for a lot of money. Tilting
when you have huge sums of money on the line just might be the biggest
mistake you can make. Keep your cool and bring home the title.
That pretty much sums up tilt. Every time you’re dealt a hand, be ready to
accept going broke. When you can do this, you are free to play to the best
of your ability without worrying about the results. Resolve to play each
and every hand as close to optimally as possible. Once you can play your
“A” game basically all the time, you will be on your way to becoming a
big winner.
 Playing Against Someone on Tilt
When someone takes a bad beat, especially an amateur, you can expect
him to be on some form of tilt. Some players go on mild tilt and some go
crazy. If someone takes a really bad beat, you can generally expect him to
be upset. If you know a player’s range will be wide open because of it, you
can play hands that would normally be considered marginal.
Say someone in a tournament gets all-in with A-A and loses to A-6 for a
100-BB pot, leaving him with 10 BBs. If he pushes from second position,
you would normally be crazy to call with A-7 in the big blind. But in this
case I think this is a clear call.
Sometimes situations arise where you are very deep and someone is on
tilt. I usually call down if I have something like middle pair or better, as
long as the board doesn’t get too scary. Say you are 100-BBs deep and
your opponent has just lost half his 200-BB stack with A-A vs. A-7. If he
raises from middle position, you should call with hands like Q-10 every
time in late position. Don’t re-raise because you don’t want to get pushed
on, forcing you off a hand with a lot of equity. Remember that folding is
usually the play against opponents that aren’t tilting. If the flop is some-
thing like K-Q-2 or A-10-2, you should call down every time unless the
board gets really scary or he gives off a solid tell that he has a strong hand.
If you think someone is on tilt, you shouldn’t be looking to fold. This as-
sumes you know your opponent is actually on tilt. Beware of players that
fake being on tilt after losing a hand. If you pay attention to your oppon-
ents and figure out how they will react to tilt before it happens, you can
find an extraordinarily profitable spot.
 Put in Hours but Take Breaks
Playing poker professionally takes numerous skills that most people do
not need in their everyday life. One major skill that most people lack is the
drive to put in the countless hours that are necessary to get to the top of
the game. When I used to grind sitngo tournaments, I would put in 12 hour
days every day. Sure, I won lots of money, but I was unhappy and starting
to not love poker as I did when I first started playing. I later learned that it
is important to have hobbies and a social life. Another problem you might
have is that once you get good at poker, you can pretty much do whatever
you want. This may cause you to spend all your time doing things besides
playing poker. You need to balance work and everything else in healthy
amounts.
Coming from a standard job, making a schedule is the best way to make
sure you put in your hours. If you know you can put in three two-hour ses-
sions per day, make sure you put in your sessions each day, taking breaks
in between. I do not like schedules. I like to play poker whenever I feel
like it. Luckily for me, I like to play poker a lot. The only time I have a
schedule is when I am playing live tournaments, which require me to show
up at a certain time to play. Think of poker as a job. You have to put in
hours at your job if you want to make money. Figure out what works for
you.
Take short, frequent breaks when you are playing. Most online tourna-
ments give you a five-minute break every hour. Get up, step away from the
computer and do something else. Read the newspaper, go outside, make a
quick phone call or prepare some food. Anything will do. This will take
you mind off poker and allow you to focus much better when you return.
At most live poker tournaments you get a 15-minute break every two
hours. I make it a point to get out of the poker area and relax my mind. I
often see online kids huddled in a circle, talking about hands they played.
While this can often be +EV, discussing poker during your breaks is actu-
ally –EV unless someone at your table is giving you a tough time and you
don’t know how to play against him. I focus significantly better on the
game when I let my mind wander freely during breaks. If friends want to
talk to you during breaks, feel free, but try not to analyze hands. Try
avoiding poker during your breaks for the next month. You might be sur-
prised at the result.
 Intuition
Intuition is a funny thing. Some poker professionals swear they just know
what to do. Others claim they always make the most mathematically +EV
play. I fall somewhere in the middle. I used to be purely a math guy, run-
ning the numbers in my head and making a decision. Over the last few
years, my brain has started to tell me to make some plays that slightly de-
viate from math. This is not to say you should make ridiculous call-downs
on a hunch or try to see a flop with 9-4o because you feel like you might
flop a strong hand. It helps me to define my opponent’s range better than I
normally would because I can tell when someone is going to get out of
line.
I would suggest that 95 percent of poker players go purely by the math. If
you always make the mathematically sound play, it is tough to get the
money in too poorly in the long run. A lot of poker players like to think
they are special, as if God has blessed them with some uncanny ability to
know what is going to happen. Obviously, they are lying to themselves,
with the possible exception of Phil Ivey. If you know you need to be 45-
percent to call in a spot and your hand only figures to have around 35-per-
cent equity, you simply have to make the fold, assuming there are no im-
plied odds at work. Don’t call because you have a hunch that your cards
are going to come. Some players make these loose calls and win from time
to time. They will continue to make these loose calls, eventually going
broke.
You may have heard the saying, “If you think long, you think wrong.”
While this sounds like a cool concept, it is false. Unless you have played
20,000 hours or more of poker, you probably lack the experience to have
any sort of subconscious intuition. You must think through a situation and
come to a sound decision. This doesn’t mean you should take three
minutes every hand. For example, if someone goes all-in for 10 BBs from
the small blind and you are in the big blind with 50 BBs and A-9, you gen-
erally have a no-brainer call. If you get A-A from third position early in a
tournament, you have a no-brainer raise. These, and most decisions in
poker, should be automatic. But if you have a tough turn or river decision,
take your time and run the numbers in your head. Do not sit there and
think, “Does he have A-K or 3-3? I need to make a decision.” That just
wastes everyone’s time. Make sure that you are running numbers and com-
ing up with an optimal decision, and not stalling.
 Luck
Luck is an interesting concept. Most people only think about being lucky
or unlucky in terms of winning or losing a specific hand. They say if you
lose with A-A against K-K you were unlucky. While this may be true, you
had to be lucky to get all-in with A-A against K-K in the first place. So,
were you equally lucky and unlucky? When you play a tournament, not
only do you have to get good hands, but your good hands have to win, and
you have to get action with them. Usually only one of the three happens.
In a tournament an aggressive kid raised to 3 BBs out of his 50-BB stack. I
re-raised with A-Q to 8 BBs, planning to call if he went all-in. A tight, old
player in the big blind cold-called. The initial raiser then went all-in. The
tight player could easily have a monster, so I folded. The tight player also
folded. The initial raiser showed A-A and won a medium-sized pot. Had
the tight player folded, I would have doubled him up for sure. So, he was
unlucky because the tight player decided to randomly call, costing him
around 30 BBs. An orbit later, the initial raiser from the last hand got it
all-in with 8-8 against A-10 and lost to an opponent that barely had him
covered. Had he won an extra 30 BBs from me earlier, he would have still
been in the tournament. So, you could argue that the tight player cost the
kid his tournament because he cold-called my re-raise with a marginal
hand.
Thinking about luck is pretty pointless. You could argue that if the wind
blew differently on a specific day, the dealer could have shuffled the cards
differently, totally changing the tournament. Obviously, the wind should
not affect the way you play a poker tournament. Do not worry about your
luck, good or bad. Players constantly talk about being unlucky because
they lost with A-K against 10-10. They seem to think they are supposed to
win everytime they pick up a decently strong hand. If you think you are
unlucky, you will eventually undermine yourself, causing poor play. If
anything, you need to think you are lucky. If you are a high-stakes profes-
sional poker player, you probably ran well above expectation because if
you ran at or below it, you would not be playing at a high level, as your
bankroll would be much smaller. Don’t worry about luck. Just focus on
playing the best poker you can.
 Physical
To do anything that requires you to roll out of bed, even things as simple
as sitting in a chair and thinking all day, you must be in decent physical
shape. Most people don’t think of poker as physically strenuous, but it is.
Most poker players have very bad spines due to sitting hunched over a
poker table all day. This can be easily fixed by learning proper posture. I
will mention a few more things in the following sections that will greatly
increase your equity over your out-of-shape opponents. Remember, any
positive thing you do that your opponents don’t do will gain you money in
the long run. This includes staying in good physical shape.
 Sleeping
I have made the mistake of playing a big tournament with no sleep only
once in my life. Needless to say, I did not play well, and I fell asleep at the
table a few times. The experience traumatized me, and I vowed to never
play tired again. It is quite important to get on a good sleep schedule and
change it whenever you will be playing in a different time zone.
I tend to stay on Pacific Time, waking up at around 9 a.m. and going to
sleep around midnight. This is because most poker tournaments in the
United States are held in the west. If I am going to play on the east coast, I
will start to change my sleep schedule a few days in advance, waking up
and going to sleep an hour earlier each day. There is nothing worse than
being on Pacific Time and having to play a 10 a.m. tournament on the east
coast.
Because I like to be fully rested, I rarely play tournaments where I have to
totally change my sleep schedule. I recently played the WPT event in
Cyprus, where the time difference is 12 hours from Pacific Time. I started
getting on the correct sleep schedule early and was fine by the time the
tournament rolled around. But I had forgotten that I had to play a big tour-
nament in Atlantic City as soon as I returned to the United States. I was
miserable in Atlantic City and played quite poorly. Allow plenty of time to
recover if you plan to make overseas trips.
One of the biggest edges in poker comes from playing tired opponents.
Some play super-tight and others try to play a lot of giant pots, but either
way, they are exploitable and will be looking to donate money. Make sure
you are not one of these people by preparing your brain to function well.
 Be in Good Shape
My weight changed from 155 to 180 pounds during my first three years of
playing poker professionally. I paid no attention to my diet and never
worked out. I started to constantly feel lethargic. I began working out
about three years ago and now feel much better. I sleep less, which means I
have a few more hours to enjoy each day. I am also stronger, which is al-
ways a good thing.
I wanted to get in shape primarily to have more endurance at the poker
table. I asked my personal trainer to build my endurance and not make me
a giant, bulky guy, as they have to eat all the time and most of their
muscles aren’t actually that strong. They are just bulk. Since I have gotten
in shape, I’m able to focus for longer periods of time at the table. My
mind doesn’t wander as often, which can cost me valuable reads. I also
have more endurance than most of my opponents.
Achieving something in the gym somehow increases my confidence in my
poker skills. Four years ago, I could barely run a mile. I decided to run a
marathon at some point in my life, so I started training. I finished a half-
marathon recently and may run the Las Vegas marathon later this year. Un-
like poker, there is little variance in physical fitness. If you work hard, you
can do quite a lot. If I can go from having trouble running one mile to run-
ning 12 with few problems, I can certainly put in the work required to stay
at the top of the poker food chain.
An added benefit is that I am probably going to live longer. If I can work
out now, gaining one hour of awake time each day (I spend maybe one
hour working out and sleep two hours less), I not only gain 365 hours per
year but I will also add a few years to my life expectancy. If you enjoy life,
this is clearly +EV. It may be weird to think of things such as life expect-
ancy in terms of EV, but it is important to train your mind to think this
way. You may find numerous other things in your life you are doing
poorly.
 Endurance
When you know you will be at a poker tournament where you could play
16 hours straight, you should be prepared to play your best poker for the
entire time. Many players arrive tired or become tired toward the end of
the day. While I am sure most people go into a tournament playing their
best, many quickly fail because they do not practice things away from the
table that would help them last through the day.
If you don’t get plenty of sleep during the nights before and during a tour-
nament, you are going to get tired at some point. Even with an excellent
sleep schedule, I sometimes find myself in a lull at the table. I order a
Coke when this happens, and it usually perks me right up. I used to drink
Coke all the time, but quit because it is unhealthy. A glass of Coke would
do nothing for me before, but now it quickly gets me going again. If you
drink lots of caffeine, find something else to wake yourself up, such as en-
ergy drinks. Obviously, it is best to not drink anything that is unhealthy,
but while you are quitting caffeine, you can use the super-unhealthy en-
ergy drinks from time to time, but don’t become addicted to them.
Another way I keep going throughout the day is to drink a cup of green tea
at every level. If a casino doesn’t have green tea, I will bring my own and
request a cup of hot water. While it may be all mental, it helps keep me
calm and focused. Something about sitting and drinking a nice cup of tea
just relaxes me and helps me play my “A” game.
Listening to music or watching TV may help you through the day. I used to
listen to music all the time at the poker table, but found I was missing
some subtle bits of information. It is useful to learn about your opponents
by the way they talk.
Some casinos have televisions located around the tournament room, usu-
ally showing sporting events. While watching the games will make the day
fly, I suggest you pay attention to poker. Again, never gamble on a sports
game that is going on while you are in a tournament. Losing a sports bet
could send you into tilt and cost you the tournament. You may also spend
most of your time watching the sporting event instead of the poker game.
You are given a break every 90 minutes or so. I usually go to the bathroom
and have a little quiet time during breaks to gather my thoughts and to get
back to being levelheaded. I make it a point to go into every level with a
fresh mindset and try to not worry about the things that happened earlier in
the day. Breaking the day up into small chunks tends to make the time pass
a little quicker.
As you near the end of a long tournament session, you will hopefully no-
tice everyone around you becoming tired. Realize that while they are tired,
you are not. Know that you will make much better decisions than they
will. Use this to boost your confidence, as you have prepared for the game
better than they have. I won a $500 tournament at Bellagio about three
years ago where we started at 1 p.m. and played until 6 a.m. Once we got
down to 10 players, I could see people falling asleep and playing poorly. I
gave myself a huge edge by simply sitting there and playing my best
poker. I became energized by seeing everyone else falling asleep. It was a
great feeling.
You can do many things to maintain your focus at the table. While many
of them, like drinking caffeine, may be bad for you, they can be useful
when used in moderation. Learn what works for you, because endurance is
something most poker players lack.
 Breathing
Learning to breathe optimally is important for numerous reasons. Just
about everyone breathes incorrectly. Their shoulders rise when they inhale.
The correct way to breathe is for your stomach to extent outwards when
you breathe in, with little to no movement of the shoulders. This helps
your body get the most oxygen from the air. I suggest that you learn to
breathe this way all the time so that it happens naturally when you play
poker.
When you play poker, with all the things going on at the table, the last
thing you want to think about is whether you are breathing correctly. If you
take long breaths in and out for the first time, you will likely start to feel
lightheaded after a few minutes because your brain won’t be used to get-
ting so much oxygen. When learning to breathe, concentrate on taking in
long, deep breaths for around two minutes at a time. Focus on breathing,
and not watching TV or reading this book. If you are like me, you will ran-
domly think about your breathing throughout the day and control it freely.
When this happens, take a moment to make sure your brain is getting as
much oxygen as possible.
Now that you know how to breathe, what is the point? Filling your body
with oxygen is known to reduce stress and increase your body’s and mind’s
performance. Surely you have heard that you should take a deep breath
when things are going poorly. Something as simple as breathing can
greatly reduce stress. Poker can be one of the most stressful games in the
world, so anything you can do to reduce stress can be valuable. Having a
brain full of oxygen all day can also help you play more hours and think
more clearly throughout your sessions. Many players become visibly tired
during the last few hours of each day in a tournament, and just want to get
through the day. This is a prime time to gather chips, while many players
are giving them away, either by playing too tight or too loose, sub-
sequently making poor decisions throughout each hand. Being able to out-
last your opponents is a crucial skill.
 Good Posture
Poker players are notorious for their poor posture. Not only will this make
you feel bad, sitting in an uncomfortable chair all day, but it will also
make your body weak. I sat with terrible posture for years and it is costing
me now. I was sitting at home one night when I got a terrible pain in my
neck. I had had neck and back pain for a while but this was different. I
went to a chiropractor and he showed me x-rays of my spine compared to
how it should look. Mine was pretty far from optimal. It turns out my
mother knew what she was talking about. Sit up straight and don’t hunch
forward. You will feel much better in the long run and your spine will
thank you.
 Nutrition
It is important to eat right and not stuff yourself before a long day at the
tables. Many players run to the buffet on dinner break, eager to eat 4,000
calories before heading back to play another four hours of poker. It is well
known that eating a heavy meal will make you tired. It will also make it
hard to think correctly. I would be willing to bet that players that eat light
meals on dinner break do much better than their well-fed opponents during
the last few hours of each day. Eat a healthy dinner during your break.
Healthy foods should not be confined to dinner break. You should eat them
all the time. I used to eat terrible food at every meal. Once I figured this
out, I quickly changed my habits and realized I could play much better
poker for many more hours. Remember how I gained 35 pounds during my
first few years as a professional poker player? I hit the gym hard and lost
10 of those pounds. Around a year ago, I learned that if you cut all the
carb-heavy foods with high glycemic indexes and sugars from your diet,
you will lose weight quickly and keep it off. Sure enough, I am now at 145
pounds.
My diet consists of mostly lean meats, low-fat beans and vegetables. I
tend to avoid fatty meats, bread, rice, fruit and desserts. People ask why I
shy away from fruit, which is supposed to be good. The problem with fruit
is that it is full of sugar, and sugar will make you fat.
I allow myself one day per week to eat the things I crave, such as pasta and
carrot cake, two of my favorite foods. This keeps my body from becoming
accustomed to eating only super healthy foods. If your body gets used to
healthy foods, you can gain a lot of weight if you slip up and eat just mod-
erately healthy foods. Changing up your diet once a week will help prevent
this.
Since changing my diet and losing a lot of fat, I have become much hap-
pier with my body as well as life. Being happy with yourself will help you
to play better poker. Eating right is an important part of being physically
fit.
 Chapter 5

Tells

A tell is a physical action someone takes that, when observed, helps you
narrow their range of hands. By the time you look at someone throughout a
hand and pay attention to his betting patterns, you should be able to accur-
ately predict a range of hands he can have. There are bet-sizing, subcon-
scious and reverse tells. The next few chapters are not meant to be a defin-
itive work on tells, but they should get you well on your way to reading
people accurately.
 General Tells
Tells are one of the primary reasons why live poker can be much more
profitable than online poker. When I first played live poker, I saw people
making weird gestures that I assumed meant something, although I didn’t
quite know what. Over the last five years, I have discovered a few key tells
that are usually accurate and can change an easy fold to an easy call, or
vice versa. These tells are powerful because, while most gestures can be
faked, these actions are generally controlled by the subconscious, which is
quite difficult to harness.
Before you can exploit tells, you have to know how to determine your op-
ponents’ baseline behaviors. You have to know what your opponents look
like normally in order to tell when something changes. Suppose someone
that sits with his feet flat on the ground most of the time suddenly curls
his feet under his chair. This is a clear deviation from his baseline beha-
vior. You also need to see a showdown hand in order to determine the reli-
ability of a tell before you invest large sums of money based on it.
By far, the most useful tell I have learned has to do with how often my op-
ponents blink. In general, when people are bluffing, they will blink signi-
ficantly more than when they have a strong hand. In fact, they usually
won’t blink much at all when they have a monster. This is because little
thought is usually required with a strong hand. When bluffing, you are try-
ing to take a strong line. Blinking is basically always a sign that someone
is thinking or that he is trying to shield his eyes from the board because he
doesn’t like it. Either way, it usually indicates weakness. In order to de-
termine a baseline for blinking, pay a little attention when you get to the
table and occasionally during the day and see if anyone is blinking in an
odd fashion, and if so, remember that they blink oddly. Most people, how-
ever, will blink at a fairly normal rate, which makes spotting fast or slow
blinking quite simple.
Blinking is a close second to breathing in usefulness. Fast breathing usu-
ally indicates a strong hand and little or no breathing means a bluff. This
is because a player who is bluffing doesn’t want to do be seen. He hopes
that sitting as still as possible will get the job done. It’s a little harder to
get a baseline on this tell, as it is sometimes tough to see how often people
are breathing from across the table. Many people are aware of this tell and
may try to reverse it on you. You have to know how sophisticated your op-
ponents are and whether they are capable of using a reverse tell.
The last tell I will discuss in depth concerns what your opponents do with
their feet. You can obviously observe this tell only in the people sitting on
either side of you. Most people don’t even realize that their feet move
while they are in a hand. A player with his feet out comfortably usually
has a strong hand; if they are tucked back, as if trying to get away from the
table, the player has a weak hand. Again, having a good baseline is import-
ant here, as some people will sit with their feet curled back all day and
never move them from that position. This tell is useless against those
players. However, when you find someone whose foot movements are cor-
related to his hand strength, it is like printing money.
A few other tells are not quite as reliable but are still worth mentioning.
Someone who is shaking uncontrollably almost certainly has a strong
hand. This is similar to the breathing tell. This could also be because a
player is new to poker and is nervous. A player who rubs his face or covers
his mouth during a hand is usually weak. Again, he is trying to shield him-
self from the bad things going on at the table. He usually has a monster
hand if he puts his hands up like the steeple of a church, with his elbows
on the table. In general, anything that greatly defies gravity, such as fin-
gers and arms straight up in the air, indicates a strong hand. The same goes
for standing up at the table. A player who stares at you is usually weak,
whereas he is strong when looking away from the table. A player who
makes stupid faces, as if he is thinking hard about a hand, usually has a
strong hand unless he is overly straightforward. Finally, a fast pulse almost
always indicates a strong hand.
There are many tells, not just relating to the face. If you study each of your
opponents, you will usually find something. Be sure to confirm that a tell
is accurate before investing a lot of money based on it. Be wary of reverse
tells from good professionals. They might induce you to go all-in when
you should fold instead.
 Initial Reads
When you first sit down at a poker table, there will almost always be
someone you don’t know, and you might not know anyone. When this hap-
pens, you have to rely on predetermined reads based on how your oppon-
ents look and act. While the following may be incorrect about any particu-
lar person, it can be quite useful in making initial reads. Stereotypes are
usually only useful during the first few levels of play. There is no replace-
ment for sound observation. Please do not be offended by any of the in-
formation below. If you are a poker player, you need to have thick skin.
The typical player you will see at the poker table will be the rich, old,
white man. This type of player usually plays tighter than he should and
will most likely overvalue hands like A-K and big pairs, investing too
much money post-flop when the situation suggests otherwise. Go out of
your way to abuse this player’s blinds and make many stabs post-flop, as
he will give up most marginal hands to continued aggression. If this player
is willing to put a lot of chips in the pot, you need to have a strong hand to
continue, as you will usually be looking at top pair, top kicker or better.
Then there are the Asian players. They generally come in two types. The
first type, usually an amateur, is super-loose and aggressive. He has no
problem re-raising with any two cards pre-flop and will bluff whenever
you show weakness. To combat him, just check and call down anytime you
make a good middle pair or better. The other type, probably a professional,
is fairly tight and aggressive. He picks his spots very well and can occa-
sionally run a giant bluff. Usually though, when the pot gets large, he will
have the near nuts. He will probably take his time and act as if he plans to
play numerous hands, especially pre-flop, hoping to give the false impres-
sion that he is playing many hands. Try to play small posts against this
guy, and realize that you need a strong hand to stick around when the pot
gets large.
Next is the growing number of online players. They are easy to spot, as
they are usually young, although there are a few older guys out there that
are also online grinders. These players can be either loose or tight, but are
almost always aggressive. They also tend to have little or no control over
their tells, as they are used to sitting in front of a computer screen all day,
where they have no reason to conceal them. I usually try to play small pots
with them and use my reading abilities to pick up pots whenever it be-
comes clear that they want to give it up. I make it a point to not fold big
hands to the most aggressive online players because they are usually try-
ing to push me off my hand.
The next group is the ladies. While women can range from great to ter-
rible, most amateur females are tight and passive. Once they’re involved
in a hand, they usually go into call-down mode, basically never folding a
hand like middle pair. Play aggressively against them, but be willing to put
on the brakes if you see that your bluffs are going to fail.
The professionals are by far the toughest to play against. They can be any
race or gender, and usually carry themselves confidently. You can gener-
ally pinpoint them by the way they talk and handle their chips. I will dis-
cuss this more in the next section.
It is important to recognize your own demographic group and how each
player type will view you. For example, if you are older, you should ex-
pect the young players to go out of their way to push you around. If you
anticipate this, you can make big call-downs with hands like top pair and
knock out some of the more aggressive players fairly early in a tourna-
ment. If you are a young online player, most other players will eventually
get fed up with your constant aggression and play back at you. If you can
figure out when to tighten up, you will have a huge edge.
Never play weakly against any specific demographic. If a player is sitting
at your table, you should have a strong desire to utterly destroy that per-
son. You should not be looking to give someone a free ride because of who
he is or what he looks like. Some demographics that are soft-played con-
stantly are women, elderly players and pros.
You can also generate initial reads on a player based on how he talks at the
table. Someone who uses the words “set” and “trips” incorrectly is usually
a weaker player. (A set is a pair in your hand that matches a board card;
trips is a pair on the board that matches a card in your hand.) You can also
tell by the way he talks about hands. If he leaves out vital information, like
stack size or image concerns, he is usually not that good.
One of the quickest ways to pinpoint a super-weak player is by the way he
stacks his chips. I make stacks of chips that all have the same value, such
as $25, $100, $500 and $1,000, plus a stack of all the larger-valued chips.
Most weak players keep their chips in short, unorganized stacks. Better
players tend to keep their chips in stacks of 20, or at least an even number.
While you can initially assign one of these numerous stereotypes to play-
ers, you should have specific reads on players after the first few levels of
play. No set of general guidelines will ever be as valuable as accurate ob-
servation.
 Having No Tells
Now that you can spot the most powerful tells, you need to ensure that you
don’t hand out your own tells. There are two ways to do this, and I am only
good at one of them. The first, which I am not too good at, is to constantly
talk and move your body, making it impossible to isolate tells among all
the information you’re giving out. The other method, which is simple and
effective, is to make no movements at all. You only need to be still while
you are in a hand. Once you have folded, your actions no longer matter.
The hand starts as soon as you look at your cards. Once you know what
you have, you should make no unnecessary movements. The easiest way is
to have one hand on each side of your chip stack with your cards in front
of them. I usually look at my cards rather quickly, as I want to protect
them from peering eyes as much as possible. Remember your cards, as
looking back at them during the hand could reveal information about your
hand’s strength. Do not look at your hand and do what I call “thinking with
your face.” This is when you move your face as if talking to yourself. Your
face should remain perfectly still to avoid facial tells.
Place your bets using smooth, repeatable motions. Do not talk or move
your face in any way during a hand. Weak players may grimace when the
fourth card of the same suit comes on the river, usually indicating they
don’t like that card too much. Some players will rise up from a slouch
when a great card for them hits the board. Learn to keep your emotions
from affecting your facial expressions and gestures. This is hard to learn
because most people are taught to show their emotions. One simple way to
greatly reduce your stress is to play for an amount of money that is fairly
meaningless to you. It will also help if you realize that one hand is nothing
in the grand scheme of things and if you play well, things will turn out just
fine.
Try to breathe and blink at a steady pace. Your opponent can’t learn much
if you move no part of your body that you can control. So, learn to give off
no information from the two most common motions, those of breathing
and blinking. To do this, simply blink and breathe at a constant rate. Blink
a little more than normally so your eyes don’t get dry. Take fast, deep
breaths so that your chest and stomach don’t rise or fall too much.
Do not touch your chips unless you plan to use them. Many players shuffle
their chips constantly during a hand, only to fumble them or allow me to
see their hand shaking nervously. Leave your chips alone. The same goes
for your cards. Don’t move them back and forth or look at them on every
street. All in all, if you move as little as possible and regulate your body’s
natural functions, you should have not just an excellent poker face, but a
total poker body.
 Do Not Give Away Free Information
Besides not giving off tells, it is important not to give away other useful
information. This includes not revealing your cards after a hand. You
should have no desire to show your opponents that you bluffed them or
you had the nuts; you don’t want your opponents to learn about your bet-
ting patterns or physical mannerisms. So, don’t show your cards.
There are a few times when you can show your cards, primarily when the
information is irrelevant. For example, if you raise with A-A in the cutoff
and everyone folds, they all know you raised A-A in this spot, so no one
gains information if you show your cards. The only side effect of showing
your big hands when you steal the blinds is that people may play a little
tighter against you, allowing you to steal a bit more in the future. I tend to
show a few of my big hands early in a tournament, hoping to get a little
more credit from my opponents later, when blind stealing becomes more
important.
Another time to show your cards is when you know it will put someone on
tilt. This mostly happens when you bluff someone. Most people, when
shown a bluff, feel like an idiot or complient your nice bluff. They don’t
go on tilt too often unless they are playing way over their heads. So, show-
ing your bluff usually is not worth the risk of letting your opponents know
your betting patterns when you are bluffing. You can also show your cards
to someone you are being friendly with, usually on your left, so he will
play back at you less often. In general, there are very few spots where
showing everyone your hand is +EV.
 The Hand isn’t Over Until it’s Over
Don’t let anyone know if you intend to fold. You can do many things to let
them know you no longer have interest in a hand. Say you raise A♥-J♥
and someone calls from late position. It comes J♠-4♠-2♠. If you bet and
he calls, don’t let him know you are unhappy when the turn comes a spade.
Say the turn is the 8♠. If you look visibly sad, your opponent will prob-
ably bet every time you check to him. Instead, if you look like you are
contemplating a bet, as you would with a weak flush, but then check, he
may check behind on the turn and the river, giving you a free showdown
and the pot.
Don’t act like you plan to fold before it’s your turn to act. I have been
guilty of this and realize it was very bad etiquette, and it hurts you in the
long run. Say a player raises, someone calls and you call on the button
with 7♠-6♠. The flop comes A-K-4. If the first person bets and the second
player is thinking about calling, don’t act as if you have no intention of
calling. Act as if nothing has happened and you are waiting for the second
player to act. You know you are going to fold, but you should not let the
second player know this. Also, before the first player bets, do not let the
other players know you missed the flop because you could check the hand
down and run off a pair or trips and win the pot. Notice if you had 4♦-4♣
instead of 7♠-6♠, you would not lose interest in the hand because you
flopped a monster. If you are known to ignore a hand when you plan to
fold, then your opponents will know you have at least a decent hand when
you pay attention. You will get much more value out of your strong hands
if you act as if you are going to have a decision in every hand.
Weak players often look at their hand pre-flop before the action gets to
them. Say you are on the button with K♠-5♣. You would normally fold
this to a raise but if everyone folds to you, you should consider raising to
steal the blinds. If you look at your hand as soon as you get it and act unin-
terested, most observant players will know you have a weak hand if you
raise when everyone folds to you. I saw a great example of this in a WSOP
event. A young kid, who always telegraphed if he was going to play his
hand, looked at his hand as if he was going to fold. Everyone folded to him
on the button and he raised. I had K-J in the small blind and re-raised, as I
figured he would fold every time. He surprised me by going all-in. I made
what I think is an easy call, as I was confident with my read, and he had 7-
2. I won the hand and a nice pot.
Always watch for players that telegraph their actions before it is their turn
to act. Sometimes if you wait around five seconds, even the most stone-
faced players will get annoyed and let you know if they want you to fold or
raise. Pay attention next time you play poker and you will be at amazed at
how often these tells occur.
 Take Useful Notes
Online players often spend a decent amount of time taking notes only to
refer to them later and have no clue what they mean. I also see people
write notes like “total idiot”, but that really doesn’t tell you what your op-
ponent does that makes him an idiot. He could be a huge calling station or
someone that bluffs way too often. You need a method to take notes on
players that gives you as much specific information as possible.
After a hand is over, I usually type how the hand played out in the notes
box. It will usually look something like “limpcalls nr w 3-3 oop, check
pushes 9-4-2 when short.” What this means is that my opponent limped
with 3-3 and called out of position once I raised. The flop came 9-4-2. He
checked, I made a continuation bet and he went all-in for his short stack,
which usually means he started the hand with 20 to 30 BBs. This note
would also mean there were no other players in the hand, as they were not
mentioned. You can make your notes as long or as short as you desire. Just
make sure they give all the relevant information and are easy to read later
when you need them.
In live tournaments, you should constantly take mental notes about what
goes on during hands, especially when you aren’t involved in them. You
should be able to clearly assess what is going on because you are not emo-
tionally involved. Note who was in the hand, as someone may play quite
differently against you than against another player. A few years back, I de-
cided I was going to write actual notes about each player in live poker
tournaments. This took too much effort and diverted my attention from the
game because I was constantly scribbling on my notepad. For live poker,
unless your memory is really bad, I suggest you stick to mental notes. You
need to look for every ounce of information you can about your opponents
all the time, as that insight may help you win your opponent’s stack later
on, in that tournament or another one.
 Raise the Same Amount Every Time
Don’t provide information with your bet sizing. The easiest way to do this
is to raise the same amount every time before the flop. I always raise
between 2 and 3 BBs before the flop, depending on everyone’s stack size.
The exact number doesn’t really matter as long as you raise to the same
amount everytime. It doesn’t matter if you raise to 2,000 or 2,100 at
400/800. Obviously if there are limpers or raisers in front of me, I will not
raise to 2.5 BBs, as that would be really –EV. Basically, I raise the same
amount in each pre-flop situation.
I usually make my continuation bets the same size as well. By the time the
pot gets to the turn and river, you will usually be able to vary your bet size
a little more, as you will not make it to too many turns and your opponent
will not have much information about the way you play the later streets.
Because your opponent will have a tiny sample size when it comes to see-
ing your turn and river bets, you can vary your bets based on what you
want them to do. You can usually vary your bet sizes a bit more against
weak players than against professionals. Minimize the bet-sizing tells
against competent players and you will be on your way to being one of the
toughest players.
 Bet-Sizing Tells
The number of chips someone bets on any given street can provide valu-
able information about his hand strength. These tells can be used against
basically every player because everyone has to bet at some point. Players
generally fall into three categories. They either bet large with their strong
hands and small with their weak hands, they bet small with their strong
hands and large with their weak hands, or they vary their bet sizes in such
a way that makes them tough to play against.
You generally want to make larger bets with your strong hands and smaller
bets with your weak hands. Despite this, you should bet all your hands the
same, especially pre-flop and on the flop. My betting strategy is outlined
in Volume 1. Keeping your early-round bet sizing the same will keep
things simple and eliminate bet-sizing tells. Your opponents will have seen
so few of your hands on the turn that you can vary your bet sizes based on
the strength of your hand at that point.
Amateurs give off a few generic bet-sizing tells. If a player opens with a
raise to 5 BBs pre-flop when he normally raises to around 2.5 to 3 BBs, he
usually have J-J or 10-10. Some players mix in A-K or Q-Q. Players do
this because they don’t want to be outdrawn. Instead, they turn their hand
face-up and let their opponents play optimally. Weak players will also put
a lot of chips at risk with a hand like top pair when there is a flush draw on
the board. They will make huge all-in raises over a normal bet because
they fear being outdrawn. Against these players, you can be confident call-
ing off with a hand like top pair, top kicker or better. Some players will al-
ways lead into the pre-flop raiser with hands like middle or bottom pair to
find out where they are at. When this type of player leads into you, it is al-
most always correct to raise with weak hands and slow-play hands like top
pair, as these players will generally fold to a raise but continue betting if
you call. Your opponents want to be told they have the worst hand. Be sure
to give them the bad news and force them to throw away the best hand.
As you can see, there are numerous ways to exploit bet-sizing tells. Pay at-
tention to every bet that goes onto the felt. It will drastically increase your
win rate.
 Timing Tells
Timing tells are usually used online, where no other reads are available,
but they can also be useful in live tournaments. Probably the most com-
mon timing tell is to quickly call with a hand for which that seems to be
the only viable option. This usually occurs with some sort of draw, as most
weak players are scared to raise with a draw. They also usually call fairly
quickly with hands like top pair, bad kicker because they know they aren’t
going to fold or raise, leaving a call as the only option. People usually take
a little longer when they have a hand that is either a call or fold, or a raise
or call. Some players take almost the same amount of time whenever it’s
their turn to act. Any significant change in the amount of time they think
about a hand is a good sign that they have a tough decision. You can usu-
ally couple this tell with a tell listed in the “General Tells” section to fig-
ure out if his hand is strong or weak. As always, it is important to have a
solid baseline on a player’s tells before putting significant money into
play.
 Busy Tells
A player who is preoccupied with anything besides poker is much more
likely to fold marginal hands. Because of this, if he is getting a massage,
ordering a cocktail, talking to a friend on the rail or actively watching a
sporting event, he is much less likely to make a play at you. If someone
raises while distracted, assuming he is not a great player, you should usu-
ally respect that raise. You should also go out of your way to raise the
blinds of these distracted people because they will usually give you the pot
with little resistance. I have seen a few great examples where players ba-
sically turned their hands face-up because something rather important was
going on.
The most memorable example happened in a $5,000 tournament at Bella-
gio. Someone raised from early position. Right about at this time, the
cocktail waitress brought someone a hot green tea and proceeded to spill it
all over the table. It also happened to get all over the cards of the player
who ordered the drink. When the action got to him, he looked at his soak-
ing wet cards and re-raised. The initial raiser went all-in with 9-9 and the
player with the soaked cards called with A-A. When sitting at the table
with soaked cards, the last thing you are thinking about is making a play
on an early-position raiser. If someone is preoccupied with something like
hot tea on his cards, he is basically never going to run a big bluff. Folding
9-9, or even J-J or A-K, is an easy play in this situation.
Now that we know players that raise when busy usually have a hand, we
need to find a way to exploit this. When I get very deep in a tournament, I
sometimes make a point to get a massage. Most players go into a lull when
being massaged, folding most weak hands. Instead, I raise and re-raise
much more aggressively than normal. When the cocktail waitress brings
me a drink, I usually make a point to raise with air and act like the wait-
ress is distracting me from a huge hand. It is amazing how often this
works because people just “know” you must have a hand to raise when you
are doing something important like tipping a waitress.
 Chip Placement
The way players place their chips in a pot can give you a huge amount of
information about the strength of their hand. You would be shocked at how
often some people splash the pot with a weak hand or set them in nice and
neat with a strong one. This type of tell is a little tougher to generalize, as
everyone puts their chips in the pot differently. Watch how people put their
chips in the pot and see what type of hands they turn up. For example, if
someone bluffs on the river by throwing a random handful of chips in the
pot and you later see him count out some exact number and nicely set
them in the pot with a strong hand, you can be pretty certain he will do
that in similar situations.
I will now explain the meanings of some basic chip motions. Most people
try to act weak when they are strong and strong when they are weak. When
they put a stack in the pot rather meekly, they usually have a strong hand.
When they spew chips into the pot, they usually are weak. Another odd
thing people do is throw the chips toward you when they are weak and
away from you when they are strong. These are just a few things people
can do, but you should look for anything and everything when trying to
pick up on someone’s tendencies.
I try to always put my chips in the pot in the same way. I count out the
chips in the staging area and place them, in one big pile, up to 20 chips
high, into the pot. The dealer will usually break down the stack to make
sure it is the right amount. Some players may get slightly annoyed at this,
as it takes an extra second, but the longer you have your hand out there
stacking and restacking your chips, the more likely you are to knock a
stack over or start shaking from exhaustion, as it really does take a decent
amount of endurance to sit still during a 10-minute hand.
 Chip Tricks
Performing chip tricks during a hand when you are bored may pass time or
make you feel cool, but it will almost always cost you money. When you
are in a hand, you want to do everything in your power to provide no in-
formation about your hand. If your opponent is staring you down and you
randomly grab a pile of chips and start playing with them, it may give
away something about the strength of your hand. One well-known pro usu-
ally shuffles chips when he is weak. That makes him easy to play against,
at least if you know he has this tell.
In general, playing with chips is a pacifying behavior, which means people
do it when they are trying to make themselves feel comfortable, usually
when they have a weak hand. See if your opponent’s hand shakes while he
plays with chips. It is usually a dead giveaway about his hand.
While I shuffle chips when I am not in a hand, I never even consider it
once I’ve been dealt cards. I only touch my chips when it is time to bet
them. This is the optimal play for almost everyone. To give away as little
information as possible, you should be still. Playing with chips is the op-
posite.
 Poker Gear Tells
When you show up at a poker tournament, always pay attention to who is
wearing poker clothes from their favorite online site or casino. These play-
ers usually think they are good poker players but aren’t. They tend to have
a decent amount of experience, so they will usually not be the worst play-
ers at the table. Professional poker players don’t brand themselves to a site
for free because if you are known to be a player at only one specific site,
once you do well in a few tournaments, other poker sites may have no in-
terest in sponsoring you. Never wear poker attire unless you are paid to
wear it. It will give professional players an initial read on you that may
cost you equity as soon as you sit down at the table.
 Tells Based on Who You Associate With
If you see someone talking to a specific demographic he doesn’t belong to,
he probably plays like the people in that group.
I was playing with an older player who I thought played decently well, al-
though I hadn’t played enough hands with him to know for sure. I noticed
though, that every 15 minutes or so, a different young online player would
come up and talk to him. I asked around and learned that the older player
was a high-stakes online tournament professional that backs quite a few
players. If all the kids didn’t constantly come up to the table, I would have
assumed he was just a semi-competent older man.
Another time I was playing with an older Frenchman who I thought played
decently well, but not great. Everyone that came up to him was also
French and older, which led me to believe he was probably just a random
guy from France. I ended up knocking him out when he overvalued a weak
top-pair hand. If I had not seen him talking to other players that were not
professionals, I may have missed a value bet on the river, costing me the
opportunity to stack him.
 Giving Off Reverse Tells
While I usually advocate giving off no information during a hand, there
are a few spots where I will throw out a reverse tell. I only do this when I
have a monster hand and greatly need a call. I don’t give off reverse tells
often because they would quickly lose their effectiveness. Your opponent
will pick up the tell you are going to represent and know what it means, so
perfect spots to throw out the reverse tell don’t come up too often.
During the Foxwoods World Poker Finals WPT event I won, I gave off
probably my most memorable reverse tell to date. There was a hand where
Bill Gazes, a well-respected, very smart pro, raised from the button, Alex
Bolotin, another respected, rather aggressive pro, re-raised and I went all-
in from the big blind for around 40 BBs. Bill folded fairly quickly and
Alex thought for around three minutes before folding. I sat perfectly still
while he was thinking. About an hour later, David Pham, one of the most
aggressive and best players on the circuit, raised from the cutoff. Bill
Gazes re-raised on the button, and I went all-in with K-K for around 50
BBs. David quickly folded and Bill thought for quite some time before
giving me the “okay, I’m going to fold” look. As soon as he started getting
his cards ready to muck, I took my hand from the felt and put it on my
mouth. All professionals know that this indicates a bluff. Bill put his cards
back down, thought for another 30 seconds or so and called with A-Q. I
later talked to Bill about this and he said he didn’t remember me doing it,
which I am sure is the truth. That does not mean his subconscious did not
pick up this move. I am confident that, had I not made that play, I would
have not had the stack that allowed me to win my second WPT title.
 Hollywooding
Hollywooding is when a player takes an exorbitant amount of time to try
to trick his opponent into thinking he has something he doesn’t have. I
rarely engage in fake thinking or acting as if I am scared. I take around the
same amount of time for every decision. While this may give up a little
equity against the weakest opponents, I think it is optimal overall.
For example, someone limps from first position, you raise with 9-9 in
middle position and he goes all-in. But first he acts as if he is in pain or
deep thought for a few minutes, like he’s agonizing over the decision. Un-
less you are getting 2-to-1 or better to call, you should almost certainly
fold. You have two great concepts working for you here. Your opponent
limped from first position, which is what weak players do with big hands,
and he put on a show.
Another example of hollywooding is what is referred to as “the speech.”
This is when your opponent goes all-in and then starts talking to you once
he realizes you are going to fold. If your opponent sees you are about to
fold and he is bluffing, he will just let you fold and pick up the pot. On top
of that, most people can’t hold any sort of conversation while bluffing. Be-
cause of this, when someone opens his mouth, he usually has a strong
hand. The opposite may be true if your opponent thinks you are about to
call. Sometimes I will get the correct amount of chips in my hand as if I
am going to call and act like I am about to put them in the pot. If he starts
talking just as you seem ready to put them in, you should almost certainly
call, because he wants you to fold.
As stated earlier, I never put on a show or talk during a hand. Against even
semi-competent players, it will usually only hurt you. If your opponents
have no clue at all, you can consider it. If it works in your specific game or
against a specific opponent, don’t be scared to use it.
 Looking Back At Your Hand
As stated before, you should only look at your hand once. Sometimes
though, great opportunities come up where you can trick your opponent
into thinking you have something you don’t. Someone who looks back at
his hand usually is either checking what suits he has or seeing if he actu-
ally has a monster.
Say someone raises pre-flop, you call and the board comes J♥-5♥-2♥. If
your opponent looks back at his hand, you can be pretty sure he has only
one heart because most players remember if they have A♥-10♥ but don’t
remember which card is a heart if they have Ax-10♥ or A♥-10x. So, you
can be fairly confident getting all the money in if you have two pair or bet-
ter here because your opponent likely doesn’t have a flush.
If you are playing against a competent opponent that knows about this tell,
you can put a hurt on him by looking at your cards when you know you
have a flush, because he will assume you have a flush draw. Again, don’t
make these plays against world-class players, but only players that are
competent but not great.
The other time people look back at their cards is when they hit an unlikely
hand, like top set. So, if someone raises from early position, the flop
comes A-7-3 and he looks back at his hand, he almost certainly has A-A,
7-7 or 3-3 and wants to be sure he didn’t misread his hand.
Some opponents look at their hand quite often, sometimes on every street.
Ignore these types of tells against these opponents because the information
you get is usually irrelevant. To be sure you are not giving off these tells,
only look at your cards at the start of the hand. Practice memorizing your
cards so you don’t leak away money by looking back at your hand.
 World-Class Players
I usually only look for subconscious tells against a world-class player,
such as his foot position or blinking rate. I am talking about a true world-
class player, not someone with a small win rate, which describes most pro-
fessional poker players. If a world-class player thinks for a long time
about a decision or talks to you during a hand, you should not let it affect
your decisions. These players are excellent at figuring which false tells
you will fall for, and will employ them when necessary. One of my favor-
ite false tells to throw out against great players is to hold my breath when I
have a strong hand, because most players don’t breathe when they bluff.
Notice I said great players, not world-class ones. Against the world-class
players, I do everything the same every time. Most world-class players
have a large bag of tricks used to separate weaker professionals from their
money. Don’t fall for them.
 Hand Reading
Throughout this section on tells, I have taught you how to spot both weak-
ness and strength by the way your opponents act. While it is great to know
your opponent is weak, it doesn’t do much good if you don’t know how to
apply this information. You must learn to accurately narrow your oppon-
ent’s range based on your reads while only discounting certain hands from
his range in order to make up for the times you are wrong, which you will
be from time to time.
Suppose you raise K♠-K♣ from middle position to 3 BBs out of your 100-
BB stack and the player on the button, a loose-aggressive player known for
bluffing, calls. The two of you see a flop of A♦-9♠-4♣. You continuation-
bet 4 BBs and your opponent calls. At this point, your opponent gives off a
tell that you believe is a sign of extreme weakness. The turn is the 2♣.
You need to figure out if your opponent will raise a turn bet or will only
bluff if you check. Assume you are unsure about your opponent’s tenden-
cies. In this spot, I would check to induce a bluff. You will be in a tricky
spot if you bet and he raises because, unless you are totally sure of your
read, which will rarely be the case, you will sometimes face a better hand
in a huge pot. If you check to induce a bluff, you can still get to a fairly
cheap showdown, greatly reducing variance. Notice that to check-raise the
turn wouldn’t make sense with any hand you decided to check the turn
with except for a stone bluff because if you check-raise, your opponent
will most likely fold, which we don’t want because he is usually drawing
thin. So, you check and your opponent bets 9 BBs. You call and the river is
the 10♦. Again, leading here will usually result in a fold or raise. You
don’t want to face a large river raise with a weak made hand, so you check.
Your opponent bets 20 BBs. You have a clear call because you induced
bluffs the entire way partially because your opponent displayed a tell of
weakness. Even though you can’t beat any ace, you should still call if you
are confident in your read. Some players get to this river with K-K and
fold to the last bet. This is usually a huge disaster because, as played, your
line looks so weak that your aggressive opponent will do everything in his
power to take you off your hand.
Sometimes your opponent may show up with a hand like A-3 in the above
example. Even though you read him for being very weak, he was actually
only mildly weak. The fact that a player thinks he is weak doesn’t mean he
has total air. Be careful when determining his range.
When you make this call-down and are wrong, go back and figure out
where you made your mistake. You will probably need to work on your
reading ability. Only make big plays based on a read if you are confident it
is correct. Many players go with their consistently incorrect reads in huge
pots, costing their tournament lives. These players would be better off go-
ing against their reads.
If you are unsure about the meaniong of an opponent’s behavior, simply
ignore it. Most live players read hands so poorly that they would be better
off playing blindfolded. Your win rate can skyrocket if you invest a lot of
time playing live poker and figuring out what the most standard tells con-
vey. But don’t prematurely assume you are a mindreader.
 Chapter 6

Practical Tips for Tournament Play

This collection of tips has taken me years to figure out. I will cover all the
subtle things you can do in and around poker tournaments that will greatly
increase your edge. I will discuss a wide range of topics such as
sunglasses, berating bad players and slowing down the game. Understand
all these topics and you will have a huge headstart.
 Protect your Hand
It should go without saying that you must ensure that no one else can see
your cards. Even at huge buy-in events, you see people who do not know
how to look at their cards without showing them to their neighbors.
Practice protecting your cards by sitting around a table with a friend and
taking turns looking at your hands. Have your friend sit on either side of
you so he can tell you if there is any angle at which he can sit and see your
hand. If he can see your hand, you aren’t looking at it correctly. Practice
different ways of looking at your hand until you get it right.
I should also talk about using card protectors to cover your cards once you
look at them. Card protectors, when used by nonthinking opponents, can
lead to hugely profitable tells. Some players always cover their hand when
they plan on playing it and some only cover monster hands. I suggest not
using a card protector. I never have and never will. As I mentioned before,
anything extra you do can give away information.
When you are in the 1 or 10 seat, hold onto your cards so the dealer
doesn’t take them by accident. I have seen this happen several times, and
it usually causes a huge argument. I stick my arms out slightly on either
side of my cards, almost boxing them in, with the only opening facing to-
ward the center of the table. On rare occasions a dealer will tell me he
can’t see my cards. I put them out a little further so they can be easily
seen, but I have never had my hand taken by accident and have never used
a card protector. If you don’t mind getting scolded by a dealer occasion-
ally, this is the best way to go.
 When to Look at your Hand
There is always some debate about when you should look at your cards.
Many players suggest you not look at your cards until the action gets to
you, so that opponents acting before you can’t get a read on you. This is a
little silly because, if you have a decent poker face, looking at your cards
should not change the way you look. I suppose if you are lazy and act as if
you have folded once you look at a weak hand, then you should wait to
look at your cards, but this book is not about playing lazy poker. One other
problem is that everyone gets to watch you look at your cards. In general,
you don’t want anyone looking at you, and you slow the game down while
you look at your hand.
If you look at your cards as soon as you get them, you may give off some
tiny tell that great players will pick up on. You may breathe differently
with a big hand, not turn your head with a big hand, and so forth. No one’s
poker face is perfect, which is really the main reason to not look at your
cards as soon as you get them. One other interesting thing to consider is
that if you are looking at your cards, you can’t look at anyone else while
they are looking at their cards. Clearly, you want to pick up reads on op-
ponents while they are checking out their cards, which is another reason to
wait until the action is on you before you look at your hand.
I mix up when I look at my hand. It discourages people from watching me.
Sometimes I wait for the action to get to me and sometimes I look as soon
as I get my cards. I wait to look at my cards when I am in the blinds, but-
ton or cutoff. When someone raises in front of me, I will usually look at
my cards if I’m not in the blinds. Sometimes I will look at the first card as
soon as I get it and the second card once the action is on me. Look at your
cards fairly quickly and don’t look at them again. The more time you
spend looking at your hand, the more time your opponents can watch you
look at your hand. Mix it up and maintain a solid poker face until you have
folded your hand.
 When You Think a Card Flashes
A dealer will occasionally pitch a card in a way that allows some players
to briefly see it, although it doesn’t land face up. Flip the card up, espe-
cially if it’s yours. Sometimes the dealer may not see the card flash. Say,
“This card flashed,” as soon as it hits your hands, and flip it up. Don’t give
anyone the option to say, “No, it didn’t.” I have never had a problem doing
this. The dealer will give you another card after the deal is complete, so
you have two cards. If the floor comes over and says your hand is dead,
which would shock me, realize you would rather your hand be dead hand
than your opponents know one of your cards.
This spot that can only be +EV. If you flip up the card, you get a new card
your opponents don’t know. If you keep the card, your opponents may
know your hand. There is nothing bad that can come from flipping up your
card, making it a purely +EV decision.
I have seen players receive an ace, then see another ace flash up on the
way to them as their second card. They usually go nuts because they would
have had aces. But dealer mistakes shouldn’t bother you. They are going to
affect everyone equally over time. Don’t be concerned because you got the
bad end of the deal this time. It happens. Realize that cards are random.
Instead of A-A this time, you will just have to play the powerful A-4.
 Look Left
When it’s your turn to act, either before or after the flop, pay close atten-
tion to the players to your left. They will often clearly indicate their inten-
tions before you ever decide how to play your hand.
Suppose everyone folds to you and you have 9♠-7♣ in the cutoff. You
could either raise or fold this hand, depending on what is going on at the
table. Once the action gets to you, look left and see if the players are
reaching for chips or are acting like they are going to fold. If you see the
button eager to muck his hand and the small blind watching the TV, feel
free to raise. If you see the button staring forward and the small blind star-
ing at you, especially if this is not normal behavior for them, fold without
a second thought.
Pay attention to how each player on your left holds his cards when he in-
tends to play a hand. Try to figure out where he looks when he is going to
play. Some players will stare intently at the action when they have a play-
able hand and some will look straight forward, as if trying to hide their
odd behavior. If you can figure out when someone is going to play his
hand, you can fold your marginal hands and save a lot of chips.
 Checking in the Dark
Phil Hellmuth popularized a move referred to as “checking in the dark.”
His logic is that if you check before the flop comes, your opponent will
have no information on whether you hit. The only problem is that you for-
feit the option to steal or take the initiative against certain opponents. On
some flops, leading is almost always better than check-calling or check-
raising. Giving up this option is a mistake.
While the way Phil does it isn’t too terrible, amateurs take it to a new
level by checking in the dark on multiple streets or pre-flop. I have seen
players check in the dark throughout an entire hand. Giving up the option
to bet throughout an entire hand is awful. I have seen other players check
in the dark from the big blind. While this may not cost you a lot of money,
you will occasionally find yourself in the big blind with A-A in a 3-BB pot
instead of a 10-BB pot, costing you the opportunity to stack your oppon-
ent.
Checking in the dark is just another form of fancy play syndrome. Don’t
do anything too fancy, especially when it takes away your options.
 Betting Weird Amounts
Against a player that tends to be curious, you should strongly consider
making a bet that is sized a little oddly to arouse that curiosity. Against
these players, when I want to get called, instead of making a standard bet
of say, 42,000, I will bet 42,375. Throwing out a whole pile of chips will
entice them to call. When you want them to fold, bet something that looks
bland, like 40,000. This works extremely well with a big pot on the river
against a weak player that you think plans to fold. Throwing out an extra
475 chips could induce him to make a crying call.
Some players always use weird bet sizes. Be concerned when they bet a
round number. In general, once you figure out what types of hands corres-
pond to a player’s odd and normal bets, you can be fairly confident that he
will play the same way in the future. I don’t bet odd amounts in every situ-
ation because it causes me to move more. Remember that you want to
move as little as possible. Betting weird amounts also slows down the
game because the dealer will have to count your bet.
I tend to make normal sized bets all the time against good, thinking op-
ponents. Most good players can think through these situations and will of-
ten make the correct decision. Do the same thing everytime and they will
never be able to out-think you.
 Do Not Worry About the Average Stack
Tournament players often worry about whether they have more than the
average chip count. Some take this so far as to raise whenever they have
less than the average stack, regardless of their hand or position. Clearly,
this is a huge leak. Some weak players will tighten up significantly if they
get a large stack. They feel safe and then they blind off all their chips in-
stead of trying to grow a large stack to win the tournament. Your play
should not depend at all on how your stack compares to others.
In a tournament, especially early on, you should only be concerned with
how many big blinds you and everyone else at your table have. That is all
that really matters. At a final table, you may find one player running away
with the chip lead. The average doesn’t matter in this situation because
everyone except the huge chip leader will have less than that. Usually, you
will see more players with less than the average chip stack than with more.
This is because a player can have more than twice the average stack but
you can never have a negative chip stack. Really, worrying about the aver-
age chip stack is as frivolous as worrying about if the weather is going to
be above or below the average temperature for the last 100 years. It is just
irrelevant information that weak players like to think about to justify their
poor play.
 When Your Bluff is Called
When you bluff on the river and your opponent calls, you have two op-
tions. You can either turn your hand up or you can muck. In my opinion,
mucking is always wrong. When someone calls my bluff, I turn my hand
up proudly. If you act timidly, the players at the table will assume you are
embarrassed by your play. When you turn up the bluff proudly, it shows
them you have the heart to make a bluff and are not concerned that every-
one knows it. This is one way you can make money even when you lose,
by striking fear in your opponents. Also, if you muck your hand, your op-
ponent doesn’t have to show his hand, which means you fail to see what he
called with. Sometimes you will be shocked that an opponent only called
with the second nuts, or you may be surprised to find that he called with
king-high. Be proud of your plays. They are what make you successful at
poker.
Players will occasionally muck the winning hand after seeing your bluff. I
once saw a player bet the river with 7♥-6♥ on a J♥-5♥-4♣-2♠-K♦
board. His opponent called and the bluffer proudly flipped up the nut low.
His opponent looked at the board for around 15 seconds, shook his head
and mucked his cards.
You do not want to be known as a habitual mucker. Some players always
muck on the river when caught bluffing. The danger of this was displayed
in an online video in which Roland de Wolfe mucked the winning hand on
the river when Tobias Reinkemeier called his bluff with queen-high, know-
ing he could probably only win the hand if Roland mucked, which he is
known to do often. Roland bet on the river and Tobias called. Roland acted
timid and said he was bluffing and acted like he was going to fold his
hand. Tobias just sat there, as he didn’t have to show his hand unless Ro-
land turned his hand up. At this point Roland showed a king but didn’t
show the other card. The hand is technically not face up until both cards
are turned up. After a while he mucked the other card and Tobias turned up
queen-high while raking in a huge pot. Mucking the winner even once in
your career will cost you a huge amount of equity.
 When the Big Blind is Sitting Out
From time to time, the player in the big blind will be away from the table,
which means the big blind is dead money in the pot. Most aggressive play-
ers try to pick up that dead money. If you are smart about this, it can make
you a lot of money.
If you are in early position, tend to raise with only a slightly looser than
normal range. I would not go nuts, raising any two cards, as you have to
worry about the rest of the table. From middle and late position, feel free
to raise a wide range, assuming your table is tight and will not play back at
you.
If your table is fairly aggressive and will play back at you, you need to be
careful because you will probably get re-raised, especially if you raise
from middle or late position. When an aggressive player re-raises, figure
out his range and play accordingly. This is tricky because some players
will vastly widen their range and some won’t widen their range at all. Los-
ing this leveling war can cost you a lot of chips.
My most memorable such hand occurred in a $15,000 WPT event at Bella-
gio. The blinds were fairly large but everyone still had 200 BBs or so, as
Bellagio starts everyone with a ton of chips. The big blind was sitting out.
I raised from the cutoff with A-J to 2.5 BBs, which is obviously a standard
raise. John Juanda re-raised to 8 BBs from the button. I figured he was
playing back at me so I four-bet to 23 BBs. He instantly made it 70 BBs.
At this point, I had to decide if he was making a play or simply had a hand.
I remembered a hand in another tournament in which he put way too many
chips in a pot with 3-3, so I figured he was capable of making a play. I de-
cided to push for my 200-BB stack. He instantly folded. I was happy. No-
tice how this could have easily gone terribly wrong if he had actually had a
strong hand. Maybe I got lucky.
Sometimes a substantial number of players haven’t shown up yet when
play begins at a table. Raise as many pots as possible when this is the case.
At most WSOP events, only four or five players per table show up at the
start of most of the larger buy-in events. This is a great time to raise and
pick up a few tiny blinds. If someone plays back at you, just get out of the
way in most cases.
 Chopping
When you get down to a few players, especially in a smaller tournament,
most players want to split the money. Unless they give you a great deal,
you should almost never chop. If your opponents are scared to gamble for
large sums of money and you aren’t, you have a huge edge. Assuming you
play well, you should have a decent edge before you even start playing for
the big money.
Most casinos try to help with chopping but use incorrect formulas to de-
termine how much each player should get. They divide each player’s stack
by the number of chips in play to determine his percentage of the remain-
ing prize pool. Everyone is guaranteed the lowest payout remaining, so
that money is taken off. This grossly favors the large stacks.
Suppose there are 100,000 chips in play. Three players remain, holding
80,000, 15,000 and 5,000 chips, respectively. First place is $100,000,
second is $50,000 and third is $25,000. So, the player with 80,000 chips
owns 80 percent of the $100,000 in contested money, plus $25,000 guaran-
teed, according to this formula. This player would then get $105,000 if he
made this deal, which is more than first place pays. This should demon-
strate how silly this method is. That being said, if you are the large stack
and everyone wants to make a deal, insist on using this formula because it
will give you much more equity than you deserve.
The only accurate way to determine the proper payouts is to use the Indi-
vidual Chip Model. Remember that from before? While ICM has its flaws,
such as assuming everyone plays equally well, it will determine an accur-
ate chop. In the example above, the chip leader, with 80,000 chips, should
get $89,580, the middle stack, with 25,000 chips, should get $51,450 and
the player with only 5,000 chips should get $33,970. These numbers are
determined by computing the percentage of the time each player will fin-
ish in each spot, and averaging the numbers. You can search online for a
simple tournament poker ICM calculator. If you have a short stack, you
should demand to chop using ICM. If no one has a clue what you are talk-
ing about, you are better off playing.
I have chopped twice in the distant past. The first time was in the Sunday
Million, the biggest online tournament of the week. We were down to four
players and I was the short stack. We looked at the numbers based on ICM.
I asked for $10,000 on top of my fair share. Everyone agreed and I picked
up $10,000 simply by asking for it. The second time I was heads-up
against a well-known tournament pro. He agreed to give me $3,500 more
than I should have gotten if we split the prize based on chip stacks, which
is the only way to do it when you are heads-up. I accepted and was $3,500
richer.
On the bubble in smaller tournaments, someone always seems to ask if
everyone will throw in some money for the person that bubbles. Never do
this unless you are the shortest stack. The bubble is one of the most profit-
able situations in poker. Use that time to build your stack, not give money
away.
 Pot-Limit Holdem
Pot-limit holdem is the closet relative to no-limit holdem, and these two
types of holdem tournaments are played almost the same way. The main
difference is that there are never antes in pot-limit holdem tournaments.
You should play significantly tighter throughout the tournament because
there is never a need to gamble. Also, you can only make a pot-sized bet
on every street, which means you can’t go all-in before the flop unless you
have 3.5 BBs or less. There are a few tricks you can use in pot-limit hol-
dem that do not work in no-limit.
Since you can’t go all-in before the flop unless you have 3.5 BBs or less,
you should be willing to blind down a bit lower than suggested in the
“Playing Poker” section of Volume 1. For example, if you have J♠-8♣ on
the button with 10 BBs in no-limit holdem, you should go all-in if every-
one folds before you. If you raise to 3.5 BBs in pot-limit holdem and
someone calls, you will be in a tough spot after the flop when you miss,
which will happen around 65 percent of the time. Just fold these hands in-
stead. Be a bit more willing to blind down and wait until you have a hand
with showdown value or can push when someone raises in front of you.
You also can consider limping the button, especially when everyone has
between 25 and 50 BBs. If you raise to 3 BBs, your opponents can re-raise
enough to make you fold most hands. If you limp instead, they can only
raise to 4 BBs before the flop, so you can always see a fairly cheap flop in
position.
You can raise less before the flop in pot-limit holdem because there are no
antes. My standard raise in pot-limit holdem is around 2.25 BBs through-
out the tournament. When antes are involved, players know they have to
make plays from time to time in order to keep afloat. In pot-limit holdem,
even if you steal the blinds only once in 12 hands or so, it is tough to lose
too many chips. This is one of the reasons why tight play is profitable in
these events.
Most people play pot-limit holdem exactly like no-limit holdem, meaning
they are constantly raising and re-raising. When you encounter this type of
player, simply wait for a hand and bust him. In no-limit holdem, you can
be pretty happy with a hand like middle pair against an overly aggressive
player. In pot-limit holdem, I suggest waiting for a slightly better hand,
like top pair. Again this is because blinding down a little doesn’t drastic-
ally erode your stack.
To summarize, play pot-limit holdem tournaments much tighter than no-
limit. While the games look and feel the same, they are not.
 Do Not Slow Down the Game
Nothing is worse for your EV in a tournament than to be stuck at a table
full of slow players. If you know you make some amount of equity per
tournament, you can figure out how much you make per hand. If that num-
ber is positive, you should play as many hands as possible during each
level of a tournament. If you make $1 per hand and play 40 hands per
hour, you bring in $40 per hour on average. If you play 60 hands per hour,
you instantly get a 50-percent raise. Giving yourself a hefty raise simply
by playing faster is a great play that every profitable player should imple-
ment.
A few years back I got stuck at a table full of players that all had slightly
less than an average stack on the second day of a $1,500 WSOP event.
They all knew we would get in the money within an hour, so they decided
to play as slowly as possible to make sure everyone at the table made
some money. They didn’t realize that playing that slowly caused every-
one’s 2/3 average stack dwindled down to 1/3 average, reducing everyone’s
chances of winning the tournament. After I lost, I went back to check on
how everyone at my table did. Only one of them lasted more than four
hours after we got in the money. Because everyone was so short, they were
forced to go all-in with weak hands. While we all got our money back,
none of us had a chance to win the tournament, costing us loads of equity.
 Show Up on Time
It is important to arrive on time to play poker tournaments, especially if
you are a good deep-stacked player. Most tournaments start you with a de-
cently large chip stack, and most amateurs have no clue how to play with a
deep stack. If you skip the first few levels of a tournament, you miss a
chance to get a huge number of big blinds all-in with an opponent drawing
slim or even dead.
Some players claim that if they show up late, some of the field has already
been knocked out and they can never go broke early. While there is some
value in just surviving in a tournament, you will have fewer chips than
everyone else at your table and some of the weak players will have already
lost their entire stack. If you play better than your opponents, you will
stack them more often than they stack you. I estimate that of the times you
double up or go broke, 66 percent of the time when you show up on time
you will have doubled up by the time the late registration period ends and
33 percent of the time you will be out. This alone proves that showing up
on time is +EV.
Players also say that showing up late allows them to sleep a few extra
hours, enabling them to be more alert in the later levels of a tournament. If
you want more sleep, go to bed earlier. I take off the day before every ma-
jor tournament I play to make sure I am well rested. If you can’t play 12
hours of poker at a high level, you need to work on your game. Most tour-
naments require entrants to play no more than 12 hours a day, so that is all
the stamina you need. Pretty much everyone can put in 12 hours if neces-
sary.
Interestingly enough, some of the players that arrive late are the better
players, which is one more great reason to show up on time. You will get
to play with weak players for a few hours. The only possible reason to
show up late is if your time is worth more to you than the money you stand
to win in the first few hours of a tournament. If you are a billionaire, play-
ing poker for a few hours to profit $3,000 on average probably doesn’t
seem that appealing. You may rather show up late and get into a flip for
$10,000. If that is the case, then do whatever you want. Show up on time if
you want to maximize your expectation for a tournament.
 Confirm the Action if You Miss It
If you are in a hand and are confused about the action, ask the dealer.
Sometimes a player will check without making much of a motion. If you
wear headphones, someone may say “all-in” or “check” and you won’t
hear it. If you have even a little doubt about what happened, ask the dealer.
Occasionally a player wearing headphones will have the nuts and someone
will say something that he doesn’t hear. He knows the player said some-
thing but doesn’t know what. The correct play is to say, “Is the action on
me?” Don’t say something like “Call!!!” because you thought the player
said he was all-in.
A pretty crazy situation came up at the 2010 WSOP main event where an
overly loud, annoying player went all-in on the river. The player facing a
decision for all his chips was known for being slightly controversial but
not overly shady. The annoying player was trash talking the other guy,
which probably annoyed him. After about five minutes, the annoying
player called for a clock, meaning the controversial player had one minute
left to think about his hand. By that time, a crowd of media personnel and
numerous onlookers had surrounded the table. With one second left, the
controversial player said something which was inaudible to most people.
The annoying player proudly flipped up his hand, saying “I got the nuts!”
The controversial player then said that he had folded. This caused a huge
uproar because the controversial player basically pulled a huge angle on
the annoying player. A player sitting next to the controversial player actu-
ally said that he had called. The floor person could not confirm what had
happened. Had the annoying player simply asked the dealer if the contro-
versial player had called, he probably would have been awarded the
player’s stack. Instead, it was ruled a fold and he missed out on $20,000 in
equity.
Whenever you ask what the action is, do it with a strong voice. If you
sound overly excited, people will know you have a monster. If you sound
disgusted, they will think you have a weak hand. As with all situations
where you give away information, make sure the information is irrelevant.
If you miss action, make sure you know what is going on. Failing to do so
can cost you huge amounts of equity.
 Carry a Bag
Carry some sort of bag when you play a tournament, especially ones with
long days. I usually carry a backup iPod, headphones, a book or two, a
jacket, sunglasses, water, some food, paper and a pen. Take whatever you
may need throughout a day. You may need nothing. If that is the case,
don’t take anything. I usually don’t need anything from my bag, but it is
better to be safe than sorry.
It is of the utmost importance to put nothing extraordinarily important in
your bag. Twice in my poker career, I have seen a player walk off and for-
get his bag, only to have someone take it. Both times the player came back
and no one had a clue what was going on. Both players had large sums of
money in their bags. Setting yourself up to lose that kind of money is al-
ways -EV. Keep your money on your person; you will never leave yourself
behind. Don’t put expensive accessories in the bag, either. If someone
stole my bag, it might cost me $200 to replace everything in it. Be smart.
Prepare ahead but don’t prepare poorly.
 How to Stack Your Chips
You might think the way you stack your chips shouldn’t matter, but it
does. Some players keep their chips in a random pile, forcing them to dig
through them everytime they plan to put money in the pot. This slows
down the game and allows other players to pick up tells. You want your
motions to be as smooth and fast as possible while still looking natural.
Some players keep their chips in one stack, with the largest chips on the
bottom. The player must then dig through his stack to find the correct
chips. I once saw a player who would shake like crazy when digging
through his stack if he had a large hand and would smoothly go through
his stack when weak. I wonder how much money he would save if he just
stacked his chips so they were easy to access.
When you start a tournament, you will usually have eight $25 chips, eight
$100 chips and some chips for larger amounts. To set up your stack like
mine, start with your stack the way the casino probably gave you the chips,
with the smallest on top and the largest on the bottom. Place your chips in
three stacks, in order from left to right: $25, $100 and everything larger.
You can then access any amount with ease. Since your stacks are ordered
from smallest to largest, you can grab your chips without even looking at
your stack, but don’t try this until you are comfortable with the layout of
your chips. One mistake could cost you a lot of money.
As your stack grows, you will have to devise new ways to arrange your
chips. I stack chips with the same denomination until I have around 30 of
them, at which time I will make adjacent piles of 20 and 10 chips. So, if I
have 18 $25 chips, 38 $100 chips and six $500 chips, I will make four
stacks in this order: 18 $25 chips, 18 $100 chips, 20 $100 chips and six
$500 chips. If I have 50 $100 chips instead of 38, I will have two stacks of
20 $100 chips, with the other 10 sitting on top of those two stacks. Once
the stack on top gets to around 25 chips, I will put 20 of them in front of
the other two stacks of 20, making a triangle, with the remaining five $100
chips sitting on top. I will do this for every denomination until I have a
big, triangular arrangement.
Put your big chips on the bottom of your stack when you go on break. A
thief could easily walk by your stack and take a large chip if it’s sitting on
top of your stack. I have heard of this happening at least twice in my ca-
reer.
 Making Change
Someone in a live tournament will often run out of small chips and ask for
change. Go ahead and make change if it will leave you with a decent num-
ber of small chips. Motion toward another player if making change would
leave you short of small chips.
Instead of asking for change, a player will sometimes throw a big chip in
the pot and state his action. The dealer may ask someone to make change.
Give the dealer change if you can. If there is enough change in the pot,
players can take back the difference.
You may ask why all of this matters. Sometimes players get protective
about their chip stack and refuse to make change, which drastically slows
down the game. Some players collect all the small-denomination chips and
refuse to make change for anyone. They do this to build a large, intimidat-
ing stack, but they cost themselves equity by missing out on playing a few
hands at each level. If you don’t like money and want everyone to hate
you, collect all the small chips and don’t let anyone have them.
 Do Not Put Chips in Your Pocket
You will have to change tables from time to time in every tournament.
When this happens, you will usually be told to not put your chips in your
pocket. Despite this, every year at the WSOP, someone puts his chips in
his pocket. This player is always disqualified because he broke the rules.
Forfeiting all your equity is very –EV. Listen to the rules the floor man
tells you and keep your chips out of your pocket.
 Sunglasses
There has been much talk about banning sunglasses among high-stakes
poker players. I think sunglasses are good for the game, and a ban just
might push poker back into the dead age of the 1980s.
The first and main reason why sunglasses are good for poker is that they
give new players confidence to hop into games they normally wouldn’t
play. Being stared down by a tough player is hard even with glasses. If I
couldn’t wear sunglasses, I simply wouldn’t play with some players unless
forced to. Most of the weaker players in major tournaments wear
sunglasses. If you ban them, half of those players might not play because
they won’t enjoy the game. If you remove half the weak players from ma-
jor tournaments, you’ll be left with a bunch of pros paying the rake.
In addition to boosting confidence, sunglasses help players reduce their
tells. Some players like to think poker is a game about staring people
down, getting a read on them and going with it. Some think it’s about math
and using logic to figure out what is going on. The math guys tend to
prefer sunglasses because they don’t rely on tells, which they don’t find as
useful as logic. The feel guys cry about sunglasses because it reduces their
edge. I think of myself as a mix of both types. Having common sense,
though, I wear sunglasses in every major tournament I play. If you give me
a weapon that will cut my opponents’ edge in half, I will use it. It’s as
simple as that. Most online players that have moved to live poker wear
sunglasses because they realize that not wearing them can only be –EV. I
like making +EV decisions, so I wear them. Not giving off tells to the guys
that have no clue how math applies to poker makes me happy. The fact that
the feel players realize their edge is diminishing is not a reason to give
them what they want. Maybe they will be forced to become better players.
Sunglasses also allow you to observe a player without his knowledge. You
should rarely look at the person who is thinking about making a big call on
the river, which is where most people look. You should look at the guy that
made the bet. A good player will be looking at the bettor, not the caller. If
you are a weaker player, or even a good one, you don’t want to let the bet-
tor know you are trying to pick up his tells. If you have to stare right at
him, he will realize this and do things to throw you off in the future.
A lot of players, especially older ones, complain that sunglasses hurt their
eyes because they are so dark. Thankfully, in today’s world, sunglasses
don’t have to be dark. You can pick up a great pair of mirrored, basically
100-percent see-through glasses from www.BlueSharkOptics.com. They
are fairly inexpensive and work very well.
If you ban sunglasses, where do you draw the line? Will we ban iPods next
year? Maybe the next year, you won’t be able to order drinks at the table
because they’re spilled all over from time to time. Maybe you will be
forced to wear a suit and tie to make the game look more formal and
reputable. Taking away the players’ right to do something is rarely good
because the people who make the rules rarely know when to stop.
The idea of cheating with sunglasses has also been brought up. Honestly,
anyone who would mark cards when the penalty is jail time has mental
problems. If you think someone is cheating with their glasses, ask to try
them on and see if you notice marks on the cards. As far as I know, I have
only been cheated in a poker game once, and that was in a private home
game. Sunglasses were not involved. Cheating simply does not go on in
high-stakes poker games because the penalty is much too high.
Some say that sunglasses are bad for TV. This simply isn’t true. Weak
players play in televised events because they have a chance to do well. If
they stop making final tables because of huge eye tells, this will diminish
the concept that anyone can win a major tournament. If you want the gen-
eral public to watch and play poker, you have to let them make the final
table and occasionally win.
I am all for sunglasses. This is not because they are magical or special. I
know they give me an edge. It’s that simple. I wear sunglasses in every
major event I play, and I suggest you do the same.
 Headphones
I wore headphones until a friend told me how much value I was missing.
Picking up on small things can hugely increase your equity in a tourna-
ment. Who’s on tilt because his wife made him mad on the phone? Who
really wants to get in the money? Who doesn’t care about money? If you
have your ears open, you will hear these things. If you wear headphones,
you won’t. People say that with headphones they can play longer because
the brain is occupied by music instead of players’ ramblings. I agree, but it
is worth toughing it out to pick up equity from knowing what is going on.
It took me about a month to get used to playing without headphones. I only
wear them now if the players at my table are talking cluelessly, which usu-
ally annoys me pretty nicely. I keep a set of headphones in my bag but
rarely use them.
 Treat People Well
When you go to a casino, your goal should be to make everyone there
happy. This includes players, dealers, floor supervisors, cocktail wait-
resses, janitors and anyone else in your vicinity. If you want to make
money playing poker, you need a place to play. Think of the casino as your
workplace. When you show up, you make some money. If the casino is
happy, you are happy. Players often complain about the casino and the way
they run their tournaments. You should do the opposite.
If you treat the dealers poorly, they may quit, which means the poker room
will be short on dealers, which means it may cost them more money to
hire replacements, which will make tournaments less profitable for them,
which may cause them to stop running tournaments altogether. This may
seem farfetched, but if enough people are rude to the dealers, it could hap-
pen. You should want the dealers to be happy. It’s not fun playing at a table
when the dealer clearly doesn’t want to be there. When you make it deep
in a tournament, leave the dealers some money. I like to make sure the
dealers get about 3.5 percent of the prize pool. Most tournaments take 3
percent off the top, meaning I will leave an additional 0.5 percent of my
cash.
If you are rude to a floor supervisor, he may become disgruntled and do a
poor job, which will also cost you money. The floor supervisors usually go
over the top to make the players happy. If you treat them well, they will
usually get you whatever you ask for. If you need a discounted or free
hotel room, ask the floor supervisors and they will either get it for you or
point you in the right direction. You can also ask for food comps, which
can come to thousands of dollars annually. Tip the floor staff very well.
They are the people that get the job done and make sure that you are
treated like royalty.
Treat the service people well. If you upset a cocktail waitress, she may
avoid your table. If you are rude to the janitor, he may leave the casino
floor strewn with trash.
Finally, treat the other players well. Tournaments don’t run if they don’t
enter. You may think you can profit by treating the good players poorly,
but you need them to show up because weaker players like to know they
can win a large first prize. In order to have a large first prize, you need a
lot of players. Also, you don’t want to be mean to the amateurs because
they might quit playing altogether.
I try to live by the golden rule: treat others as you would like to be treated.
I like to be treated well, so I must treat everyone else well. In my mind,
there is no other option. Remember that even if someone is not in your
circle of friends, he still deserves respect.
 Do Not Berate Poor Play
Berating the bad players might be one of the biggest mental problems I
had to overcome. Losing when you are a huge favorite is never fun. Poker
would be much less profitable if no one ever brutally sucked out on you, as
weak players would stop playing and the games would become unbeatable.
To overcome my anger at the weaker players, I had to realize that my ROI
would be considerably lower without them.
There are two main reasons for not telling players how bad they are. First,
if you go off on them too harshly, they may quit and never play again.
Second, you may motivate them to play better. So, you either lose a dead-
money player or turn a bad player into a decent one.
Berating players can also create a table dynamic that will put you in tough
situations. The other players may or may not think you are on tilt and may
or may not play differently against you than normal. You want to have a
clear idea of how your opponents will play against you. Clouding that vis-
ion can cause you to make mistakes. You want to make as few mistakes as
possible, especially when a mistake can cost you your tournament life. If
you tell someone he is a terrible player, he may play differently against
you. He may try to beat you in every pot or make big folds to show you
how good he is. Either way, it will make your reads incorrect.
I now do better than just ignoring bad beats. I’m nice to the weak players.
I have heard that the late Chip Reese was the best at making high rollers
want to play with him, because they didn’t mind losing to him. Making
weak players want to play with you should help you to enjoy a long and
profitable poker career.
Quite often, especially at smaller buy-in tournaments, I will see a semi-
competent player berate a poor player. Wanting to keep the poor player
happy, I usually look at his tormentor and shake my head in disgust. This
usually gets my point across.
 Do Not Fear the Pros
If playing with professionals gets your heart rate up and your pre-flop
raise percentage down, you are probably scared of playing with them. The
pros are just like you, only with more experience and skill. They are not
poker gods that always make the right decision.
Players often avoid playing hands against certain pros, fearing they will be
outplayed. If the greatest poker player in the world raises from middle po-
sition and you have A-K on the button, you should never fold. In fact, if
you think someone plays well post-flop, you should usually re-raise with
the intention of getting all-in if the stacks aren’t too deep. What actually
makes most pros good is that they steal more pots than the average player.
Because of this, you should actually want to play more hands with the
loose-aggressive pros, usually by applying maximum pressure. This is ob-
viously not true against the tighter pros.
Some players are on the other extreme, always trying to outplay the pros.
Don’t go out of your way to put a play on a world-class player so you can
tell your friends how you outplayed a pro. This will just cost you equity. If
telling your friends a story is worth risking the loss of a tournament, go
ahead and try it.
Just play your standard, tight-aggressive “A” game against the top players.
Don’t play overly tight and don’t go out of your way to play pots with
them. Most pros expect amateurs to play too tight or too loose. Playing
right in the middle will throw them off their game.
If you are a pro and people already fear you, you have to optimally adjust
to each player. I am in an interesting situation where most, but not all,
tournament players know who I am. I have to figure out if people are go-
ing after me, staying out of my way, or just thinking I am another random,
young kid. If you are someone like Phil Ivey, everyone knows you, so they
will generally play either too tight or too loose.
I pay attention to who is looking at me more intently than I think is nor-
mal. Someone might mention that he is at a tough table, which indicates
he might know me. Once you determine who knows you, try to determine
whether they will play tight or loose against you, then play accordingly
and take their chips.
 Table Talk
Table talk is the practice of talking to your opponent in a hand to get in-
formation out of him. I personally don’t ask my opponents too many ques-
tions at all because I give people enough credit to answer in a manner that
might level me into playing my hand incorrectly. The main time I talk to
the players is during the WSOP, where the worst players in the world come
to play.
When someone talks to you in a hand, simply ignore him. This denies him
any information. Do this every time; your silence could be a tell if you
normally talk during a hand. I remember a hand on ESPN where Phil Hell-
muth had something like A-K on K-x-x and folded to a guy that had A-A
because the guy basically told Phil he had A-A. Clearly, this was a huge
mistake. He probably would have stacked Phil if he had just sat there and
said nothing.
Players generally tell the truth in a stressful situation. I saw a great ex-
ample of this on the bubble of a $1,500 WSOP event where I raised with
A?-Q? and someone went all-in for 15 BBs. I would normally call here but
as I was counting my chips to see what I would have left, the player said,
“I have two aces. If you want to gamble, call.” I folded and he flipped up
A-A, saving me a decent number of chips.
Most players aren’t too quick to think of smart things to say when they are
worried about going broke. If they tend to jumble their words or act overly
nervous, they are usually bluffing. Also, when two players are talking and
one of them instantly stops talking when he looks at his cards, he usually
has a big hand. Once I had A-J in middle position and a player who had
been talking nonstop suddenly shut his mouth. I folded and he showed up
with K-K.
Table talk can also provide information in online poker. You should gener-
ally not type much of anything in the chat box. I only reply when a student
is talking to me or if someone says “nice hand.” If you lose a big pot, the
last thing you want to do is to type gibberish about your bad luck or your
opponent’s poor play. This will tell everyone that you are probably on tilt.
Also, if you play lots of tables at once, distracting yourself by typing in a
chat box will only cost you equity and give you less time to make de-
cisions on other tables. Don’t talk while you are in a hand. It can only cost
you money in the long run.
 Do Not Talk Strategy at the Table
Sometimes a player will ask your opinion about a hand. Say as little as
possible; you don’t want players to know you think about the game. I must
be decently well-known because people ask my opinion often. I usually
dumb down my answer and often give totally incorrect information. Some
players see what I am doing and others don’t. Until people are constantly
trying to talk to you, I suggest you keep the strategy talk at the table to a
minimum.
I am more than happy to talk about poker away from the table with
friends. Talking to other players is one of the best ways to improve. But
when you talk about strategy at the table, you are basically giving every-
one a free lesson. Poker lessons are meant to be expensive. Make a point
to keep it that way.
 Chapter 7

Etiquette

This chapter will deal with a few poker etiquette issues that are breached
all the time. If you are going to play a game, you need to know the un-
spoken rules as well as the formal ones. Not knowing these rules not only
makes you look uninformed, but it may cause someone to take offense.
 Do Not Talk to the Person you Just Beat
When you beat someone for a big pot, the worst thing you can do is to talk
to him afterwards. Someone who loses a pot either wants to sit and fume
over the hand or think it through. He doesn’t want to be talked to. It’s even
worse to berate a player after he loses.
I had the pleasure of losing a big hand with J-J against a semi-competent
regular tournament player who had A-Q. We had talked before the hand
about his business and how using it could benefit me. He berated me after
we got it all-in and he hit a queen to beat me, saying I should have known
he had a big hand and folded. After this, I certainly will not be giving him
any business, not because he beat me in a hand, but because he has no clue
about how to treat people after something bad happens to them.
The moral of that story is to leave people alone after you beat them in a
big pot because you really don’t want to make people hate you. It is nice to
go to sleep at night knowing you didn’t upset anyone. That is not what
poker is about.
 Excessive Celebration
Not much annoys more than to get sucked out on and then have to watch
someone run around and scream about how good he is at poker. But my
displeasure isn’t reason enough to write about it. Besides slowing the
game down and causing a scene, excessive celebration lets people know
you are emotionally attached to the game. You want opponents to fear you
because you have no respect for money. If you get excited when you win a
pot, you let them know they should not fear you.
Excessive celebration can also adversely affect the person that lost the
hand. If a weak player loses a big hand, he doesn’t care to watch someone
celebrate having taken his money. It is another form of berating him.
I am trying to come up with some counterpoints as to why celebrating is
good and I can’t come up with many. It is good when someone wins to act
like he cares. Some players celebrate because it makes them feel good to
belittle their opponents. I am obviously not in that camp. I am quite op-
posed to excessive celebration, and I hope you will be, too.
 Know What You are Talking About
I was playing a $1,000 tournament at Venetian when I heard a few players
discussing a WPT final table that was also being played that day. They
concluded that it started at 1:00 p.m., even though I knew it started at 4:30.
They determined that Phil Hellmuth was second in chips at the final table
when he actually busted in seventh place. They said Mike and Vince would
not be there, but they would. One player provided most of the erroneous
information.
This player either thought he was giving accurate information or was
blatantly lying. He probably thought he knew what he was talking about. If
you do not know the answer to a question, you should not feel obliged to
make something up. If you don’t know the answer, just say so.
I have been to a few poker seminars whose instructor clearly did not know
what he was talking about. One “professional” actually said, “If you get
ace-king in middle position and raise, if someone re-raises, you should
probably fold because you have a drawing hand and are behind all pairs.”
That is just silly, but people were there listening and taking in that inform-
ation as if it was the truth. If you are getting information from someone
claiming to be a professional, make sure he actually is a professional. As it
turns out, the player giving the seminar had won his last tournament in
1986. Please don’t be like this person, giving out blatantly false informa-
tion.
 Rapping the Table
I have no clue how knocking on the table started, but it is supposed to
mean “nice hand”. So, when someone wins a nice pot off you, it is accept-
able, although fishy, to lightly rap or pat the table in the winning player’s
general direction. I see this misused frequently.
When you win a hand, you should not talk to the player you just beat. You
certainly should not tell them “nice hand.” I would bet 25 percent of ama-
teur players rap the table when they win a hand. If you don’t want to look
like a jerk, don’t rap the table when you win a pot. Just sit there and stack
your chips. Imagine what would happen if you busted someone and said,
“Nice hand, buddy,” as he was leaving the table. That would be a fun situ-
ation.
 Telling the All-In Player “Good Luck”
When someone goes all-in, you don’t need to say anything to him, espe-
cially if you aren’t involved in the hand. I almost exclusively see weak
players wish the all-in player good luck, effectively telling an opponent
that they hope they lose. I think this is because the worst thing that can
happen to a weak player that is playing well above his bankroll is to bust
out of a big tournament. He thinks everyone is in the same boat and
doesn’t want anyone else to go through that pain. I hate to break it to you,
but everyone except one lucky person is going to go broke in each and
every tournament. Next time someone goes all-in, don’t tell him “good
luck”. You might as well be telling the other player, “I hope you lose.”
 Talking During the Hand
You already know that you shouldn’t talk when you are in a hand. What
about when you’re not in a hand? Only talk to the players on either side of
you and on either side of them, as long as one of the players in the hand is
not sitting between you. If you have to talk around someone in a hand, be
quiet and talk later. Nothing is worse than thinking about a big decision
while someone rambles in your ear. The courteous and respectful thing to
do is to be quiet and let the player think about his hand.
Don’t talk about the cards you folded while the hand is going on. For ex-
ample, if the 2 and 3 seats are in a hand and I am in the 7 seat talking to
the 8 seat, even though they can’t hear me, I should not say anything about
the current hand. I should not even whisper it. You should take this one
step further. Say someone raises, I call and someone re-raises. The first
player thinks for a while before calling and I fold 10-10, which I would
never do. If it comes 10-4-2, I shouldn’t throw my hands up in the air and
act as if I just lost out on a lot of money. This would tell the other players
that I folded something that would have connected well with the flop,
which could only be a set.
Similarly, you know you will check-fold if someone raises, someone calls,
you call with 9♠-8♠ on the button and the flop comes A-K-2. Don’t let
everyone know this, such as by uncapping your cards, drinking your drink
or talking to your neighbor. Just sit there as if you plan to play the hand.
It all comes down to showing respect to fellow players and letting them
play the game as it was meant to be played.
 Do Not Reveal Your Cards
Assuming you play well, you should never have a desire to show a neigh-
boring player your hand. You will often see players, especially at low
stakes, show the players on either side of them a decent, but obviously
beaten hand when they fold. This gives those players information the rest
of the table doesn’t have, and may cause the other players to think you are
colluding with your neighbors.
For example, say you raise with A-K from middle position and both blinds
call. The flop comes 9-5-3. The small blind checks and the big blind bets.
Some players in this spot will show the A-K to their neighbors and fold.
Now the small blind knows you probably had big cards, which takes a few
hands out of the big blind’s range. Also, everyone that saw your hand will
now know you can fold A-K in that situation, which probably means you
are a straightforward player. They may also realize you are probably on
semi-tilt because you didn’t want to fold a hand that was probably behind.
All in all, nothing good comes from this. Simply fold your hand and get
ready for the next one.
 Make Chips Easy for the Dealer to See
Before the flop, especially with antes in play, the dealer will sometimes
have a tough time telling who has anted and who hasn’t. To avoid confu-
sion, which can slow down the game tremendously, make sure your chips
are easy for the dealer to see. An example will better illustrate this.
Suppose you are playing 250/500-50 in the small blind. Some players will
put out a big stack of 12 $25 chips. The dealer will have to break down
your pile of chips and then take out your ante. Some players put out four
$25 chips and two $100 chips in one pile. Again, the dealer will have to try
to find your ante. Some players will throw out three $100 chips, causing
the dealer to make change to get your ante. Make sure your ante is visibly
in front of your blinds. This eliminates any confusion.
Some players put their ante on top of the dealer button. This can cause the
dealer to totally miss your ante or drag the entire pile, along with the
dealer button, into the pot, again causing confusion.
This may seem like nitpicking, but these things slow down the game. Even
if you play only one less hand per level, you will miss out on a ton of
hands every year. If you play 500 fewer hands per year at $1 profit per
hand, you’ve forfeited $500 per year by putting your chips into the pot in a
confusing manner.
 Chapter 8

Going Pro

At some point you may consider becoming a professional poker player. If

you have to ask if you are ready, you probably aren’t. Becoming a profes-
sional is a major decision that will drastically change your life, as you will
no longer have a stable job. If you have a good job and make plenty of
money, you probably should not even consider becoming a professional
poker player because you are already financially secure. Poker makes a
great hobby and can even bring in a significant amount of money on the
side. I know a few successful businesspeople that make over $100,000 at
their jobs and bring in an additional $100,000 a year playing poker. If you
have a family to support, you should strongly consider keeping your day
job because it would be terrible to let your family down. The decision is
easier if you are young and no one depends on you.
I decided to become a professional when I was 18. I was a college student
working at a job that paid $10/hour. I lived with my parents at the time.
So, I had no bills and a rather low-paying job. I had grinded my bankroll
up to around $20,000 by playing $200 sitngos and felt invincible. I quit my
job and started grinding full-time. I dropped out of college and eventually
grew my bankroll to around $60,000. I decided it was time to put $20,000
down on a condo and move out of my parents’ house. This created some
bills, as I now had to pay out around $1,500 each month for living ex-
penses. I then went on a downswing, leaving me with around $10,000 in
my bankroll. I was on thin ice, as I had no money set aside for living ex-
penses if things continued to go poorly. I moved down in stakes and played
numerous hours. I eventually emerged from the rut and got to where I am
today.
I made a few huge errors when I decided to go pro. I could have become
just another failed poker player if my situation had gotten much worse.
First, I only had 100 buy-ins for my regular game, which isn’t nearly
enough if you are going to have no other source of income. Since going
broke was not an option, I should have waited until I had around 200 buy-
ins, or $40,000.
I had no money set aside for living expenses. This was huge mistake num-
ber two. I was not used to paying $1,500 per month for living expenses,
which made it much tougher to make a profit.
Once I got up to $60,000, I decided to put a third of my net worth down on
a condo. This was huge mistake number three. Once I had a decent bank-
roll, I decided to put a third of it into an investment from which I couldn’t
withdraw for a long period of time. Condos in general are a bad idea be-
cause they usually charge a monthly association fee which can add up to
thousands of dollars per year. I am just now learning how bad that is, as I
rent out two condos and have to pay a decent chunk of the rent money in
association fees and taxes.
Notice that I would have been in fine shape if I had lost $30,000 out of a
$60,000 bankroll, still having $30,000. I had to move down to smaller
games when I lost $30,000 out of $40,000, which probably cost me a de-
cent amount of equity. If I broke even for a while, I would have gone broke
because I had set aside nothing for living expenses. I also would have gone
broke if I had run much worse with my remaining $10,000 bankroll. I was
pretty lucky to make it out of there alive.
I did not mention dropping out of college in my list of mistakes. This was
a great decision. Most people go to college either to get a degree or to
hang out with people. I wanted to be a poker player, so I didn’t need a de-
gree. I didn’t have many friends in college because most of my close
friends from high school had moved away. Having a degree to fall back on
if poker goes poorly is very +EV. I quit college about two years before I
would graduate. I probably would have finished if that time had been
much less. I have seen a few world-class online players drop out with only
six months left, which seems crazy. Sometimes you just have to bite the
bullet and finish school. I’m constantly asked if I ever plan to go back and
finish my degree. My answer is a solid “No”. A degree really has no value
to me, and I don’t want to have to show up to class and take tests. It’s as
simple as that. Nevertheless, I suggest everyone in college finish their de-
gree before becoming a professional poker player.
Before you consider going pro, grind up a bankroll and play a limit where
you can make around three times your current salary. You need a huge
sample size to know your actual win rate, so play around 3,000 tourna-
ments, 5,000 sitngos, or 200,000 hands in cash games before you consider
quitting your job. Next, determine your living expenses for the next six
months. Set aside $3,000 if you are a young kid living off $500 per month.
Set aside $30,000 if you have a family and spend $5,000 per month. You
can then consider quitting your job and going pro.
You also should consider what happens if you go broke. The decision to go
pro is easier if you know you can get your job back. If you can’t return to
your job or get one that pays at least remotely similarly, you should seri-
ously consider that before quitting. You also need to think about how you
will grow your bankroll while still paying your bills. If you are grinding
out $30/hour playing $30 sitngos, you will probably make around $4,500
per month, assuming you have a 5-percent ROI and play 3,000 games in a
month. If you have a $30,000 bankroll and want to move to the $50 games,
you will only be able to add $1,500 to your bankroll each month if you
have $3,000 per month in bills. This means it will take you a year before
you have enough money to move up. The solution is to either keep your
living expenses low or to not go pro until you are playing at a high enough
level that your living expenses do not matter.
You should also save money every month. Somewhere down the road you
will need money, and if you set aside some amount every month, you will
have it. This is tougher for multi-table tournament players than for those
who play sitngos or cash games, who generally have more consistent win-
nings. I set aside money everytime I win a big tournament. However you
decide to do it, plan for the future.
There is a lot to think about when deciding whether to go pro, but it really
comes down to a few simple questions. How much am I actually making
from poker? What will happen if I go broke? Will going broke adversely
affect anyone else? Do I have enough money to grow my bankroll while
paying bills and saving money? You can consider going pro if you have
good answers to all these questions.
 Do Not Overestimate Yourself
I have seen countless poker players that could beat $1,000 tournaments
move up to $10,000 tournaments and get crushed. Moving up and playing
with tougher competition is a way to get better, but it certainly is not a
way to keep your bankroll intact. While most players are confident in their
abilities, the truly great players realize there is something to learn every
time they sit at the table.
When I play tournaments with buy-ins around $500, I see a lot of young
players that think they are the greatest in the world. When they talk about
poker, it is clear they know the jargon, and it is also clear they have no
clue what they are talking about. These people tend to play well beyond
their bankroll and eventually go broke, as I rarely see any of them in
$10,000 buy-in events for long. They are not as good as they think.
The nature of poker tournaments greatly influences players to think they
are better than they are. If you beat 500 people in a $500 tournament, as-
suming you know nothing about math, you will probably assume you are
better than most of those 500 people. This couldn’t be farther from the
truth. On any given day, as long as you are aggressive, you have a chance
to win any poker tournament. That does not mean you have any business
playing in the largest games.
You can evaluate your level of play by watching training videos by the
best players in the game. If their play differs significantly from yours, you
are probably not that good. The level of tournaments that you win is a de-
cent indication of your skill level. If you have been playing $500 tourna-
ments for years and only have one win, you are probably playing too high.
Similarly, if you play $10 tournaments and win one every week, you are
probably playing too low. I know a pretty good player who plays for small
stakes because he likes having a consistent win rate. He thinks he is a
world-class player because he can beat $3 tournaments with ease. Needless
to say, beating $3 tournaments does not make you God’s gift to poker.
Note where the money comes from in high-stakes tournaments. Most weak
tournament players are the big winners in their home games. They beat up
on the really bad players in their local games and come to Vegas to play
with the professionals, usually to be sent home with only a story to tell.
Being able to beat a home game does not qualify you for high-buy-in tour-
naments.
Keeping their ego in check is a constant struggle for some people. I was
fortunate enough to be wired with the realization that I am not the best
poker player in the world. I have a long way to go, but with study and
practice, eventually I will be at the very top. Even if you get to the top,
there is always someone right on your heels. Be humble and accept that
you do not know everything there is to know about poker.
 Do Not Try to be Macho
Amateurs tend to think poker is a game about who has the most guts. They
think that the person that makes the biggest bluff or the grandest all-in
should win the money at the end of the day. Most professionals know this
couldn’t be farther from the truth. While playing aggressively will help
you become a winner, you also must be patient, selective, cunning and ma-
nipulative, which is much different than bullying everyone around and
spewing chips into the pot.
Don’t become obsessed with beating a player you think is bullying you.
You will play too many pots, trying to flop too many decent hands. You
may put too many chips in the pot with a hand like a weak top pair. This
soon leads to tilt and from there, you are doomed.
The smartest, easiest thing to do is to play your “A” game and don’t try to
show how courageous you are. If you keep a level head, you can sit back
and slowly, but surely pick off the players that are constantly trying to out-
play each other.
 Do Not Set Silly Goals
Players often set goals that are silly because they can’t control the out-
come. For example, some players say they want to win $10,000 per month.
Clearly, if you make $200/hour, you need to play 50 hours on average to
make $10,000. This appears to be simple, but you could easily lose
$200/hour over those specific 50 hours. Setting monetary goals, especially
in the short run, will only cause you to play poorly. If the end of the month
is coming and you have only won $7,000, you may gamble hard to try to
reach that $10,000 goal, costing yourself a decent amount of equity.
Another silly goal is to move up to a certain buy-in level by a given time.
This is similar to the monetary goals because usually your bankroll de-
termines the level you can play. If you currently play $20 tournaments
with a $2,000 bankroll and decide that you want to be playing the $50
tournaments in three months, you are basically telling yourself you want
to win $3,000 over the next three months and have enough skill to beat the
$50 games.
Another goal that makes sense initially but fails in the end, at least for me,
is to say you will play a certain number of hours each month. While set-
ting a schedule and sticking to is seems fine, if you are playing poorly, you
are probably better off spending some time away from poker. Say you de-
cide to play 160 hours per month but end up playing only 120 hours of
good poker. If you play the next 40 hours on tilt, you will be giving back
much of what you won in the first 120 hours.
There are some good goals to have. First, have a goal to not go on tilt.
When you feel tilt creeping up on you, recognize it and make sure it
doesn’t affect your game. Another great goal is to always play your “A”
game. If you are drifting into autopilot and playing suboptimally, correct
yourself instantly. Try to be happy in your life. You may have heard the
saying, “Attitude is everything”. Well, it is true. A lot of poker players are
miserable in life. Avoiding this will greatly increase your expectation.
When set a goal, make sure it is one that is not subject to variance. Then,
make sure the goal is reasonable and will help you become a better player.
 Do Not Pity Yourself
I have heard players, especially young online guys that are known for be-
ing smarter than the average person, constantly complain about their luck.
First off, if you are a professional poker player, I can almost guarantee you
ran at least at neutral EV during the start of your career. In fact, poker
players often run really hot when they first start playing, only to later learn
that they actually are not great players. This alone should temper the de-
sire to complain about bad luck.
When some people lose a big hand, they get upset and focus on their bad
luck. Instead, they should realize they made a +EV play that didn’t work
out. Losing a hand should not cause pain. It is true that misery loves com-
pany. If you aren’t miserable, you will have no desire to voice your pain to
everyone. In fact, you shouldn’t even feel pain.
I instantly lose a level of respect for a player who complains about a bad
beat, especially if he does it to get sympathy. We have all lost to unfortu-
nate situations. It happens. I don’t view any standard bad beat, such as los-
ing with A-A on an A-7-7 board, as that unlucky. It happens to all of us, so
there is no reason to get upset. If you are not prepared to deal with vari-
ance, poker may not be the game for you. You will be much happier when
you realize you are going to lose hands when you have a lot of equity. If
losing doesn’t cause you pain, you will have no reason to get upset, which
will allow you to play much better poker in the long run.
 Be a Good Person
My conscience beats me up when I’ve done something wrong. I have done
enough bad things in my short life to learn that I play much better when I
have a clear conscience. I know a few players that constantly do things
that I would consider bad, but it appears not to bother them at all. If you
don’t mind playing while having to worry if someone is thinking about
killing you because you just screwed them over, then I guess this section
isn’t for you. Actually, it is common sense that you should not do bad
things.
Once you start living a good life, you can do a few other things to help
others to have better lives. First, you can donate money. While I have not
donated a huge sum of money, I have donated some. It is always a great
feeling to know others are going to have a slightly better life because of
my donation. You can also donate your time. There are many great causes
out there that need people to help. You can find something you care about
and support that cause. You can also give back to other poker players. This
book and my online coaching videos are forms of that. Not much makes
me happier than to hear someone who has watched my poker videos tell
me that because of me, he has made it as a poker player. Doing good things
simply makes you feel good. If you feel good, you will play better poker.
 Leaks
Poker players, and people in general, would have much more money if
they could plug their leaks. These can range from super-expensive meals
to drugs. While it is important to spend your money on things you enjoy,
spending all your money on any specific thing is usually a bad idea.
The top leak for most professional poker players is probably casino
gambling. You have to have some level of degeneracy to be a high-stakes
poker player. I mean, you have to be a little crazy to put up $25,000 to play
a game for a few days, right? Obviously, levels of degeneracy differ from
person to person. Some poker players can play $10 blackjack while they
play $10,000 buy-in tournaments. This isn’t much of a leak. Some people
play $10,000 hands of baccarat when they play $10,000 tournaments. This
will keep these players near broke for most of their careers.
Even if you are smart about it, you will lose perhaps 1 percent at casino
gambling, which means you will lose $1 for every $100 you bet. While
this doesn’t look like much, if you play 100 hands per hour at $10,000
each, you can expect to lose $10,000 per hour. That will put a hurt on any-
one’s bankroll.
Sports betting was my major leak. While I thought my bets had a positive
expectation, betting $1,000 per game with an edge of perhaps 0.5 percent
will result in huge swings. Unless you are willing to devote $300,000 to a
bankroll, you are almost certain to lose a lot of money in any sample of
bets that isn’t huge. My best advice is to never, and I mean never, play any
game a casino offers besides poker. This includes sometimes +EV games
like sports betting and blackjack because even if your edge is positive, it
won’t be most of the time. The simple solution is to stay away.
Another major leak of poker players is partying, drinking and drugs.
Lucky for me, my parents taught me from an early age to not drink or do
drugs. Also lucky for me, I don’t like the loud environments of clubs.
Many poker players feel like they are living the cool life by spending
$10,000 at a club every other night. While there is nothing wrong with
hanging out with your friends and having a drink, it will cause huge prob-
lems in every aspect of your life if done to excess. I think most people feel
like going to a club is a way to be hip and hang out with friends. Once you
get a lot of money, like most poker players, you feel like you can afford to
spend a huge amount of money everytime you go out. In the long run, this
will cost you a large percentage of your bankroll.
If you can drink in moderation, you should have no problem. But most
people can’t drink in moderation. As for drugs, putting anything into your
body that can kill you is just plain dumb. You should avoid anything that
can greatly increase your chance of death. This includes smoking, doing
drugs, driving cars really fast, robbing banks, etc. My advice is to not start
in the first place.
One final monetary leak is what I will call “living the high life,” i.e., hav-
ing to have the nicest things possible. I do not have a huge house or a su-
per nice car. I do have a fairly nice house and a fairly nice car. Quite a few
poker players win a tournament for $1 million and assume they will make
$1 million per year for the rest of their lives. They get a loan on a $5 mil-
lion house, fully expecting to pay it off in 20 years. They find that paying
a mortgage is tougher than they thought, especially if it is for a decent
amount of their income. The same goes for buying a car, going on vaca-
tions or eating nice food. I love great food as much as anyone, and this
may be a borderline leak for me. Spending $200 for a meal once every two
weeks is basically negligible if you make $20,000 per month. If you eat
$200 meals every day, like a few of my friends do, that quickly adds up to
$6,000 per month, which is 33 percent of their monthly income. While
working hard and making money does allow you to have nice things, make
sure you don’t live well beyond your means, as your actual salary is hard
to predict in poker.
Now, let’s talk about leaks that don’t actually cost money. Most people call
these hobbies. When done in excess, they will suck up numerous hours
that you could have spent playing poker. My number one time spender,
which I have to constantly monitor, is watching television and playing
video games. I group these together because they are both spent sitting in
front of the TV. When poker is going poorly for me, I will take a day off
and watch a TV series. While this seems harmless, I am losing an entire
work day. A few years back, I played no poker for a month and just
watched TV. Clearly, that is a problem. While you do need to take breaks
from poker, don’t become a professional TV watcher. This concept can be
applied to pretty much anything that can be done in excess, such as hiking,
fishing, sleeping or watching sports.
Learn how to spot leaks in your life. Anything that consumes a lot of your
time or money is probably a leak. If you’re running to the sports book
every day like I used to, placing a bet you don’t actually have the bankroll
for, you have a leak. Once you find a leak, you have to admit that you have
a problem and become determined to plug the leak. You may need to talk
to your friends or get professional help if your problem is big enough.
There is nothing wrong with asking for help.
It is important to spend your money on things you like and your time on
things you enjoy doing. After all, one of the major benefits of playing
poker for a living is the freedom to do what you want. However, it is of the
utmost importance to preserve your bankroll. Leaks will eventually suck it
dry and leave you broke.
 Poker is a Numbers Game
If losing a string of hands bothers you, either you need to change your
mindset or realize that poker may not be for you. When you play poker,
you have to think in terms of your ROI. For example, I used to play $200
sitngos for a living. You can lose $200, or you can win $200, $400 or $800.
These look like big numbers, but on average I won around $10 per game.
So, if I played 1,000 games, I knew I would win about $10,000 on average.
If I played 10 games, I could easily be up or down $2,000. If I wanted con-
sistent results, I had to play a lot of games. So, I tried to play at least 2,000
sitngos every month to ensure that I won consistently each month. In con-
trast, people who play one or two games per day will have big swings over
long periods of time. To deal with this, you have to put in lots of hours and
play lots of games.
Poker has huge short-run variance. I have played around 55 WPT tourna-
ments. I have two titles, four final tables and 13 cashes with an ROI right
around 900 percent. Does this mean I am the greatest player ever? In the
WSOP, I have played around 150 tournaments with one final table, 11
cashes, and a -70 percent ROI. Does this mean I am the worst player ever?
My ROI is about 400 percent over all the live tournaments I have played,
which means I’ve gotten back $400 for every $100 I’ve invested. But if
you compare the WSOP and WPT, you see two very different pictures.
The best high-stakes online multi-table tournament players hope to have
around an 80 percent ROI, i.e., they expect to win $80 everytime they play
a $100 tournament. If they only played two $100 tournaments per day, they
would make $160 per day on average, which isn’t that much money. They
have to play 15 $100 tournaments per day, bringing in $1,200, which isn’t
too shabby.
When you sit down at a tournament, the prize pool shouldn’t affect your
thinking. Professionals often talk about skipping tournaments because first
place is only $300,000, or go well out of their way to play in a tournament
with a $5 million prize pool. If your ROI is the same in both tournaments,
which may or may not be true, you should play both of them, assuming the
travel rake isn’t too high. Poker is a numbers game. If you put in a lot of
volume, you stand to win at a fairly consistent rate in the long run.
 Have a Large Skill Set
There are two main types of poker players: those that play only holdem
and those that play every game. I used to be only a holdem player but I
have branched out to PLO, PLO8 and the stud games. Holdem players usu-
ally play either all forms of holdem or only one type. The types include
limit, pot-limit and no-limit, and holdem can also be broken down into
tournaments, sitngos and cash games.
If you want to play poker tournaments for a living, you need to know most
aspects of holdem. Large buy-in multi-table tournaments usually start you
off with 200 big blinds or more, which means that standard middle-
stacked tournament theory goes out the window. A deep-stacked tourna-
ment starts out basically as a cash game with a little more emphasis on not
going broke, since you can’t rebuy. It becomes a sitngo when you reach the
final table. If you have no sitngo experience, you will encounter situations
where you are clueless. At times you will play very short-handed, such as
on the money and final-table bubbles, and at the final table. To be a suc-
cessful tournament player, you need to be a winner at both full-ring and
short-handed cash games, sitngos and tournaments.
There is also value, which I admittedly miss, from playing all the other
games. Numerous pros think I am crazy for not being adept at the stud
games. The only time these skills really come into play is during the
WSOP, where tournaments are played in every poker format. Most non-
holdem tournaments get a small field, making it significantly easier to win
a bracelet, even if you are only break-even against the field. This is why
becoming competent at the other games is next on my list of things to do.
It is tough to learn a new game. Once you have plenty of money in your
bankroll and can devote some time to learning another game, I see nothing
wrong with going for it. I have been spending most of my free time lately
learning to play six-handed cash games. My nine-handed game is near op-
timal but my six-handed play is a little shaky. I am starting to see that six-
handed poker has much more variance and, despite what I initially
thought, I am actually pretty good at it. Once I feel confident in my short-
handed no-limit game, I plan to learn Omaha 8 or better to the best of my
ability. I am already fairly competent at it, but would like to be world-
class. Spend at least a week playing a new game online, which will force
you to learn the fundamentals. You may play your normal game three
weeks in a month to pay the bills and devote one week to learning your
new game. I suggest you first learn to play holdem, as this is the most
played game by far and likely will be for a long time.
Of course, you should learn a game decently well before playing at the
level of your regular game. I know a few great no-limit holdem players
that have seen a weak player in an Omaha game. They assumed a weak
holdem player was also a weak Omaha player, which may or may not be
true. They usually got in the game, lost a few buy-ins and quit. Just be-
cause there is a bad player in a game does not mean you are better than
that bad player or the other pros at the table. Make sure you know a game
before playing it for high stakes.
You should always be moving up or branching out, either increasing your
hourly rate or your skill set. There is nothing worse than remaining stag-
nant in the ever-evolving game of poker.
 Know the Game You are Playing
When I first started playing live tournaments, it only made sense to play
my normal strategy. The problem was that my normal strategy was used to
beat sitngo tournaments, not multi-table tournaments. While they both in-
volve no-limit holdem and are played until one person has all the chips,
they require different skill sets and strategies. A sitngo strategy is too tight
for a large multi-table tournament. You need to make the top 1 percent of
the field in a multi-table tournament to make a big score, whereas in a
sitngo, you are happy to just get in the top 30 percent. Clearly, you should
use different strategies to achieve these goals. You need to know the
proper strategy to beat the game you are playing. You certainly would not
play seven-card stud as you would no-limit holdem. The same applies to
the cash-game and tournament forms of no-limit holdem. Do not assume
you know how to play tournaments because you know how to play cash
games or sitngos.
Tournaments are quite interesting because you need a large skill set to do
well. You must have sound strategies for both deep and short stacks. It is
important to put in numerous hours at each form of the game. To improve
my game, I put in countless hours at 100-BB cash games, turbo sitngos
and heads-up sitngos. Even with all my experience, I still find myself in
tricky spots, especially when I have around 40 BBs, as there are basically
no games where you play with that stack size. If you work hard at the nu-
merous forms of no-limit holdem, you will be well on your way to beating
tournaments.
 Play a Game with a Future
While most people enjoy playing no-limit holdem, a few prefer lesser
known games like razz or seven-card stud. There is a reason why these
games are not as popular as holdem. These games usually require too
much skill, causing weaker players to go broke too fast. Other times, the
game just isn’t enjoyable. A few people only play specific types of games,
like pot-limit Omaha sitngos, which run at small levels but never at the
higher levels, which is where you have to play to make a living. I suggest
you do not play games that do not run at a high level because if you be-
come a winner, your skills will have a fairly low value, whereas the equi-
valent skill at something like Texas holdem will be worth quite a bit.
At the time of this writing, I see only three viable games to learn. First is
no-limit holdem, which is where most of the tournament and cash-game
action takes place, and which will likely continue to dominate for a long
time to come.
Second is pot-limit Omaha. This game is quickly catching on as the
second most popular cash game. Omaha has huge variance. This is nor-
mally not good for pros, but it fools the weaker players into thinking they
are winners, causing them to stick around for a long time.
The third option is to learn the new eight-game mixed format that has star-
ted to run online. It’s obviously quite difficult to learn eight games instead
of just one. The high-stakes action seems to be headed this way, as the
limit and no-limit players all think they have a big enough edge in their
preferred game to make up for their disadvantage in the other games. I can
tell you, if you are good at PLO and no-limit holdem, you will have an
edge in these games, even if you are a small loser in the limit games.
 Play in Soft Games
Decent poker players often try to make a living at games that are just a
little too tough for them. There is a level that each competent poker player
can beat. I, for example, can beat basically any tournament, whereas one
of my students may only be able to beat $500 tournaments. If they play
higher than $500 tournaments, they should expect to lose money. Another
example would be if you are the tenth best cash game player in the world
and you are playing with the nine people that are better than you. Even
though you are tenth in the world, you should expect to lose. On the other
hand, you would have a huge edge if you decided to play with the 101st to
109th best players.
There is one main reason to play in games you can’t beat. If you can beat
$50 tournaments, you will probably break even or be only a tiny loser at
$100 tournaments, which makes playing them only a tiny mistake in terms
of dollar equity. Playing these games still may be +EV because you will
hopefully learn from the better players. There are cheaper forms of prac-
tice, such as reading books or watching training videos, but we all would
like to move up sometime. Basically, you should play in games you can
beat if you want to make money, and play in tougher games if you want to
gain experience. Just realize that playing in those tougher games will cost
you equity.
 The Long Run
People talk about the long run in poker, but few know what they are talk-
ing about. When playing live poker, you can frequently tell who cares
about the long run and who is short-term result-oriented. People who get
upset about a bad beat are usually result-oriented. Players who realize
poker is a long-run game are usually the biggest winners.
Players say things like, “I got all-in with ace-king and lost to ace-queen.
Either poker is rigged or I am the most unlucky person ever.” I hope you
see how this is just silly. I hear players say, “I had a losing month. I must
be pretty bad at the game.” Even world-class players have losing months. I
have had two losing years out of six in live tournaments, and I play more
hands than 99 percent of poker players. My results are a bit skewed be-
cause my two losing years were -$150,000 and two of my winning years
were +$1.5 million.
If you don’t play often, you should expect long losing streaks. I may play
150 live poker tournaments over the course of a year. While this may
sound like a lot, if I grinded online, I would play 150 tournaments in a few
days. You will reach the long run much faster online than live. A good
sample size for tournaments is around 2,000 games. Obviously, the num-
ber of players in each tournament will affect this figure. If you play sitn-
gos, I suggest you play around 5,000 games at a given level before you de-
termine your ROI. For cash games, you probably need to play 200,000
hands before you claim your win rate. As you can see, even my six years
of playing live tournaments isn’t what I would consider a decent sample
size. If I don’t have a representative sample size, most people will be
nowhere close.
You are going to get bad beats over and over again throughout your poker
career. It seems like most people think they are 100-percent to win when
they get it all-in with A-K vs. A-Q and get upset when they lose. When
you are 70 percent to win, you are only going to win 70 percent of the
time, not 100 percent. Also, when you get all-in with 30-percent equity,
you are going to win sometimes. You should not feel bad when you suck
out. When you lose 10 times in a row when you are 70 percent to win, you
must realize it is just variance. Variance is what makes poker profitable. If
the weak players never won, they would quickly stop playing. It is actually
the bad beats, which so many players complain about, that make poker
such a profitable game. The sooner you realize this, the sooner you will be
on your way to being a great player.
I should also mention the silly idea of streaks, as they are really just vari-
ance. Sometimes, you are going to win 10 sessions in a row. This does not
mean you should move up in stakes, unless your bankroll dictates it. Also,
if you win a few hands in a row at the poker table, it does not mean you
should try to see the flop with your next hand, no matter what it is. Vari-
ance causes the cards to do funny things sometimes. You only see these
streaks in hindsight. All you can do is play each hand optimally. Spend
more time paying attention to the game and less trying to find that myth-
ical hot streak.
 Bankroll
Bankroll management has been the downfall of many great players. Two of
my students failed because they refused to listen to me about bankroll
management. I tend to put a little too much emphasis on survival because I
have no way to refill my bankroll if I go broke. Note that your bankroll is
not all the money you have to your name. It is the money you have set
aside to play poker. I suggest that every serious player set aside at least six
months’ worth of money, aside from his bankroll, to pay bills. There are a
few times, however, when you can gamble quite a bit more than most
people consider.
To make things simple, I would always keep 100 buy-ins for tournaments,
50 buy-ins for full-ring cash games and 80 buy-ins for 6-max cash games.
Having any less than that greatly increases your risk of ruin. If you are
playing for a living and have no way to refill your bankroll if you go
broke, you should keep much more than I suggest. You will need an even
larger bankroll as you move to higher-stakes games, where your ROI will
be lower. You will also need a larger bankroll if you play a game with
higher variance, like pot-limit Omaha. Again, if you do not mind going
broke, feel free to lower the numbers, but not too much. For example, I
suggest a $10,000 bankroll if you want to play $1-$2 no-limit full-ring
games with a buy in of $200. This may seem absurdly high, but it is neces-
sary to avoid going broke.
The main time bankroll management goes out the window is when you can
play in a tournament full of weak players. This happens every week in the
large Sunday tournaments online and during the WSOP. If you normally
play $2 tournaments, there is a $10 tournament on PokerStars that is one
of the best tournaments of the week. If you normally play $50 tourna-
ments, each site has a huge $200 or so buy-in tournament that is full of on-
line qualifiers. The World Series of Poker Main Event is a great example
of a tournament that every competent player should try to attend. If you
win, not only do you get a huge amount of prize money, but you are a lock
to be sponsored by an online site, which could easily be worth more than
the prize money. If you normally play $1,000 tournaments live, it would be
criminal to not play the $10,000 WSOP main event. Basically, you should
look to play tournaments where the average player is much weaker than
normal for that buy-in level.
The other time you may want to gamble is when you win a satellite into a
big tournament. Clearly, if you have $30,000 to your name and you win
your way into a $10,000 buy in tournament, it would usually be wise to
sell the seat and add the $10,000 to your bankroll. However, if that extra
$10,000 will not really change things for you, it may be worth playing in a
large tournament because if you do well, an extra $1 million would be life-
changing. Make sure you have adequate practice at live poker before
jumping into a large buy-in tournament. If you are -EV in the game, which
most satellite winners are, I would always suggest selling the seat and con-
tinuing to play your standard game.
Another situation occurs when cash games that are higher than your nor-
mal game are super soft. This happens frequently at the $200/$400 no-
limit cash games online, where successful businesspeople want to play
with the best poker players in the world. If you normally play $25/50 no-
limit and have a $2 million bankroll you have grinded up over the past
three years, it would be criminal to not play the $500/$1,000 game when
there is a very bad player at the table, even if you are slightly worse than
the other four professionals at the table. Basically, you will have about a
60-percent chance of winning. Do not be scared to lose a few buy-ins. I
have watched great players lose one buy-in and then quit even though they
are still very +EV in a game.
Let’s talk now about how to grow your bankroll. If you have $1,000 and
want to play tournaments, you should be playing $10 tournaments. If you
run well for a while and grow your bankroll to $2,000, you can play $20
tournaments. It is fine to move up a level before you have 100 buy-ins.
Once you get up to around $2,500, give yourself about 10 buyins to play
$30 games. If they go well, you will move up faster. As you move up, so
will your bankroll requirement, as the games will be tougher and your ROI
lower. Once you get up to around $5,000, you can start playing the $50
tournaments, but you shouldn’t become a regular at the $100 games until
you have around $12,000. You should usually move down a limit when you
have only 50 buy-ins at your current limit. So, if you are playing $20
games and your bankroll gets down to $1,000, move down to $10 games.
Don’t be ashamed or embarrassed about this. Everyone goes through a
stretch when they are forced to move down. The players that refuse to
move down when things go poorly are the ones that end up broke.
 Downswings
It has been said that the next best thing to winning at gambling is losing at
gambling. Whoever said that clearly did not play poker for a living. Down-
swings either build a player’s character or break him. If you play long
enough, you will eventually hit a stretch when you run worse than you ever
thought possible.
Professional poker players often run hot at the start of their career. If they
had run poorly, they would have gone broke and never become pros. I went
through a yearlong downswing when I first played live poker. It seemed
like I lost everytime I got all-in. I lost about $150,000 of the money I had
won grinding sitngos online, which was quite depressing. I would have
gone broke at live tournaments if I hadn’t started with a huge bankroll. I
kept my head up and eventually started winning. I often see a player
launch his career by winning a tournament and eventually run poorly, los-
ing most of his winnings and finally going broke.
While downswings are quite common, most players never learn to accept
them. You must realize that you are not going to win at poker tournaments
everytime, or even most of the time. You will experience long periods
when you win nothing. I eventually realized that if I won all the time, the
weaker players would never win. If there were no weak players we would
all be out of a job.
My friend Mike Matusow often talks about the rising stars of poker get-
ting humbled. This is what happens when someone runs overly hot for a
year or so and then goes on a multiple-year downswing. It seems like there
is a new star in the poker world every year that later fizzles out and goes
broke. Most of these players are not as good as they think, which gives
them the false confidence necessary to play in the biggest games in the
world. They usually end up failing. The true test of time is how a player
handles the roughest times in his career, when he fails to win for a long
period of time. I have been lucky to survive two fairly large downswings.
If you realize that downswings will eventually come, you can prepare for
the drought.
When I am on a large downswing, I try to do things I enjoy. This could be
working out, reading books, hiking, watching TV, talking to friends about
poker hands or taking a vacation. I generally have little problem with tilt,
so I just keep playing my normal poker schedule. If you have even the
slightest problem with tilt, I suggest you take a little time off and refocus
on playing optimally. Many players remain in downswings much longer
than they should because when they run poorly, they start playing poorly.
When you are losing, you should not alter your style in an attempt to get
even or lose less. Just play your normal game and keep calm. Assuming
you play optimally, which may or may not be the case during a long losing
stretch, you will find yourself winning again in no time.
 The Rake
Poker is a zero-sum game, which means a dollar is won for every dollar
lost. However, you will pay some sort of rake basically anywhere you play
poker. This is usually a small percentage of each pot or tournament buy-in.
Because of this, only a small number of poker players win a significant
amount in the long run.
The rake in a tournament is usually a percentage of the buy-in, which gen-
erally decreases as the buy-in increases. For example, the standard $50
tournament in Vegas is $50 + $15, with the $15 going to the house. The
standard $500 tournament charges $40 rake and the standard $10,000 tour-
nament charges $300. The $3 online sitngos charge $.40, which is pretty
high by online standards. The $6 games charge $.50. I suggest you start at
the $6 level because of this much lower rake.
If you play cash games, you need to know how much the house is going to
charge. For example, you pay 5 percent of each pot, up to $4 per hand, in
most Vegas $2/$5 no-limit games. You are expected to tip the dealer
around $1 when you win a pot, so the total rake comes out to around $5 per
big hand you win and $3 for a small pot. Once you move higher than $2/$5
no-limit, you usually pay a fixed amount per half hour to sit at the table.
At $5/$10 no-limit, it is $6 per half hour, so you pay $12 per hour plus
dealer tips, which will come out to around $18 per hour. The rake is un-
capped in most European countries. I played at a place in Europe that
charged 3 percent per hand at $10/$20 no-limit. There were probably two
pots per hour where the house took $150 or more. Even though the players
were awful, I thought I would not be a huge winner simply because of the
rake.
There is also travel rake, i.e., expenses for traveling to play poker. I paid
$5,000 for hotel rooms and airplane flights on that European trip. That
means I had to have at least 50-percent ROI to break even, which very few
poker players will have. This is one of the main reasons I rarely travel
overseas to play in tournaments. The rake is just too high. However, if the
players are much worse overseas, to the point where your ROI goes up
more than the rake, it becomes +EV to travel to those games. A great ex-
ample of this is the World Series of Poker. Basically every professional
poker player in the world comes to Vegas each year to play in these events
because there are more weak players in one place than any other time of
the year. Note also that you have to spend quite a bit of time traveling to
these events. You could spend that time playing poker or enjoying life.
Recently there were two sets of tournaments going on at the same time,
one in London and the other in America. There were around $50,000 worth
of events in London over a month. In America there were $10,000 worth of
events over a two-week period. It would cost $7,000 to go to London for
the month. The cost of staying in America was $1,000, as all hotel rooms
were comped. Staying in America meant I could see my family for a week,
as they lived near one of the tournaments. I also needed to sit down and
spend some quality time writing this book, which couldn’t be done if I
went to London.
I estimated I would have a 50-percent ROI in London because the tourna-
ments had tough fields and I would be playing on a poor sleep schedule,
for a profit of $25,000 minus the $7,000 travel rake, giving me $18,000
profit for the month. In America I would have perhaps a 150-percent ROI;
the fields were super soft because most good players were in London. I
would make $14,000 minus the $1,000 travel rake, for a $14,000 profit
with the added benefits of seeing my family, not having to change sleep
schedules and getting to work on my book. After running the numbers,
staying in America made the most sense.
Going to London could have been the correct play had I highly valued go-
ing to London or playing big events with great players. If two choices have
a similar ROI, I tend to go with the one that will make me happiest.
So, what can you do about the rake? If you play online, you can get rake-
back, which returns a percentage of your rake, usually around 30 percent.
When I grinded sitngos, I would regularly get $10,000 per month in rake-
back. When you play a lot of $200 + $15 sitngos, it adds up fast. I would
usually win $10,000 per month from playing the games and get another
$10,000 from rakeback. If you play in casinos, you can ask for a discoun-
ted room rate (the poker rate) which is usually no more than $100 per
night even at the nicest casinos. You can also ask for food comps. Most
poker rooms have reward programs that give you $2 or so per hour while
you are at the poker table. If you talk to, and tip, the tournament directors,
they will almost always hook you up. Tournament directors can also get
you cheap package deals for events where few players are expected.
Despite the rake, poker is a very profitable game. But do everything in
your power to keep the rake low. A penny saved really is a penny earned in
this business.
 Hourly Rate
I’ve always been lax about figuring out my hourly rate at tournaments be-
cause I know they are worth my time. If you are not sure, you need to keep
records on the hours you play and figure out what you’re making on an
hourly basis.
Poker tournaments, especially live ones, take a long time. For the big ones,
you often have to fly across America the day before the event and fly
home afterwards. Be sure to include this time in your calculations, espe-
cially if you tend to waste time while on an airplane. You should also
count time that you spend driving or studying tournaments, as you could
spending that time doing something else. This is a lot to keep track of, but
you need to do it if you are serious about figuring out your earn rate. Most
poker players would be shocked at how little they actually make once they
add all this together.
Suppose you are a decent cash-game player and can make $100 per hour at
a local casino with no time investment except a 15-minute drive to and
from the casino each day. Despite this, you want to play tournaments.
Maybe you value being on TV or having the recognition of your peers.
There are many things you should consider before making the switch. You
estimate you could switch to tournaments right now and make $50 per
hour. You also think it will take about 50 hours of studying tournaments to
increase your earnings rate to $100 per hour. So, you have to give away 50
hours to gain this skill. You can spend your free time, away from your nor-
mal $100-per-hour cash game, to study tournament poker. You can watch
less television or sleep a little less. You can take one day off from your
cash game every week, giving up about $800 in equity, and use that time to
play and study tournaments. You can spend perhaps four hours of that time
playing tournaments and four hours studying, which means you will lose
$600 in equity, because you will profit $200 from tournaments, and you
will get closer to being able to make $100 per hour from tournaments. You
don’t have to totally change your life overnight. Try to find creative ways
to play your normal game while learning a new one.
Suppose you have a job you don’t really enjoy that pays $50 per hour for
an unlimited number of hours. You can play poker, a game you love, and
make $40 per hour. Finally, your favorite thing in the world to do is to re-
lax on the beach, which you can do whenever you want. You have to find
the optimal balance between dollar EV and happiness EV. Clearly, you
can’t relax on the beach all the time if you need to make money. If you
can’t quit your job and get it back later, you should probably keep your
job. You also need to consider your bankroll and savings when determin-
ing how much you should play poker. Also, is the enjoyment you get from
poker worth losing $10 per hour compared to your job? You have to an-
swer all these questions to determine how to spend your life. Think things
out clearly; otherwise you could end up in a mess.
I make some fairly poor decisions in these situations. About once every
six months, I am randomly at a casino where there is a small buy-in poker
tournament starting soon. The most recent was a $500 tournament at a
local casino that was going on at the same time as the WSOP. I had no
more WSOP events that day, so I figured I might as well play this tourna-
ment for fun. I failed to take numerous things into account. First, would I
be happy if I won? Probably not, as first place was around $6,000. Would I
be sad if I lost? Probably, because losing is never fun. Did I have other
things to take care of? Yes. I had spent the previous two weeks playing
WSOP events and I had numerous errands to perform. Would going to bed
early and relaxing at home help me in the future WSOP events? Yes, be-
cause I was worn out from playing constantly for the last two weeks. All in
all, playing this $500 tournament was a huge leak even though I made
about $800 in equity from it. Just because something will make you
money does not mean it is the correct choice.
 Spots You Should Not Pass Up
Situations come up all the time in everyday life that are either slightly -
EV, neutral EV, or highly +EV. A great example is when you are lost while
driving and trying to get somewhere quickly. Say you are at a spot where
you can either go left or right. Unfortunately for you, you are not sure
which way to go. Fortunately, there is a store right at the fork in the road
where you can ask for directions. You can guess the correct route, possibly
going well out of your way, or you can take two minutes to ask for direc-
tions. Giving up two minutes to ensure you are going the right way is a
much better play than losing 15 minutes by going the wrong way half the
time. You can express it in a simple equation.
There are many spots in poker where you can gather free information that
can be quite helpful. Say you have the nuts and you think your opponent
said, “I’m all-in,” but are unsure what, if anything, was said. In this spot, I
will wait a few seconds for the dealer to react. If the dealer does nothing, I
will just sit there. If the dealer looks in my direction, I will calmly ask the
dealer what the player said. If the dealer confirms that he is all-in, I will
obviously call as fast as possible, but if the dealer says that the player said
nothing, I will continue to wait for my opponent to take his action. The
other, much worse option in this situation is to quickly say, “Call,” and
turn my hand face-up. Clearly, if the other player has taken no action, you
have just given up the opportunity to win an extra bet on the river.
Don’t pass up an offer from a much better player to help you improve your
game. Do whatever you can to get as much information from him as pos-
sible. If you are around poker players a lot, someone may offer to back
you in a game much larger than your regular game. Take these opportunit-
ies if you are not giving up much by skipping your regular game, as you
can only gain from them, ignoring the problems that sometimes arise
between backers and the players they bankroll. This is similar to situations
where you take a shot at a larger cash game, except your only options now
are to break even or win.
Players often get up and walk around while a tournament is in progress,
choosing to not even look at the hands being dealt to them. It should be
clear that if you are better than your opponents, you should be playing and
not walking around, unless you have tilt issues that are resolved by walk-
ing around or are dealing with business that is more important than the
tournament. When you are away from the table, you not only miss hands
that you would normally play, but you also miss watching everyone else
play their hands. A wealth of knowledge is available just by paying atten-
tion to the action at the table. You may see an obvious tell that could later
gain you lots of chips, or you may miss the fact that someone is on tilt and
ready to give away his stack. I almost always show up on time to a tourna-
ment because of this.
I lost with A-A, K-K and A-K within the first 30 minutes of a $25,000
WPT main event at Bellagio. Because we started with 1,000 BBs, it only
cost me one-fourth of my stack, but I was still mildly tilting. I decided to
get up and grab some food. The blinds were very small, so blinding off for
an hour was basically irrelevant. The only thing I missed was the oppor-
tunity to pick up tells, which I would have a hard time doing, given my
mental state. So, while being away from the table can be acceptable in
some situations, they are few and far between.
In both poker and life, look for situations that cost you nothing but can pay
off greatly. In my opinion, the only thing better than usually being +EV is
always being +EV.
 Other Sources of Income
Every professional poker player should find ways to make money outside
of the game. This can come from any source, as long as it is fairly consist-
ent. Most of us have bills, and if you can have enough income every month
to pay those, you can concentrate much better on poker because there will
be less pressure to win.
Quite a few players are endorsed by online poker sites. The deals these
players get range from great to terrible. Sadly, most of the deals aren’t
worth too much money and if they are, most players don’t have the skills
to make them pay off. A few top players get a chunk of money each year
to play tournaments. Clearly this is ideal because you don’t have to pay for
buy-ins, making any cashes pure profit. These deals only go to players that
the general public loves, which excludes almost everyone.
Another way to bring in income is from coaching. I love coaching because
it brings in variance-free money and allows me to help players to improve
their game. Make sure you know what you are teaching; you don’t want to
take someone’s money and give them incorrect information.
I’ve invested in real estate each time I’ve won a big tournament. Now, I
bring in a little money each month through rental houses. I hired a man-
agement company for all the hands-on work, so all I do is collect a rent
check each month. You can also do this by investing in businesses. Make
sure you know what you are investing in before putting all your money
into it. You could lose money on your investment, and you risk locking up
a large portion of your bankroll, which could prevent you from playing
your normal games.
However you decide to bring in extra money, make sure there is a low risk
of loss. You don’t want to put a lot of money in something, fully expecting
a nice monthly check, only to lose it all. Be creative when finding outside
income sources. I am sure there are great opportunities that I have never
thought about. Make sure you still have time to play poker, as some busi-
nesses require a lot of time. Finally, make sure you don’t have to worry
about where the money comes from. A bad day in business could easily
sink into your mind, causing you to play bad poker.
 Have a Retirement Fund
Unlike people in regular jobs, poker players have to set up their own re-
tirement funds. Most of us do not want to have to play poker until we die.
In order to retire, you need to start saving now. Every year, I put as much
money as I can into my retirement fund. This money is taxed at a much
lower rate than normal, which reduces my tax bill. As an aside, pay your
taxes. Failing to do so will catch up to you at some point.
Your poker abilities will likely start to diminish around age 60. At this
point, you will either have to move down, which means you will make less
money, or you can retire. If you have $5 million in your retirement fund,
which isn’t too tough to do if you are putting $40,000 towards your retire-
ment every year, you can retire and live the rest of your life doing basic-
ally whatever you want. If instead of putting money into a retirement ac-
count, you spend it on partying; you will have to work until the day you
die. This all goes back to planning ahead. If you plan ahead, you will do
much better than everyone else.
You should probably avoid keeping your money in dollars, at least for now,
because the U.S. government is currently printing dollars as fast as it can.
This decreases the value of your dollars. Suppose there are one million
dollars in the world and a gallon of gas costs $1. Each dollar is worth one
gallon. If the government prints one million more dollars, the price of a
gallon of gas will almost certainly rise to $2. Your dollars lose value as
more enter the marketplace. For this reason, at least under current eco-
nomic conditions, I suggest you invest your money in commodities, like
oil and food, or precious metals, like gold and silver. For the foreseeable
future, people will drive cars and have to eat. As for gold and silver, there
is very little left on the planet that is yet to be mined, meaning all that we
currently have on earth is all there ever will be. Also, silver is constantly
used in numerous industries. Did you know there is actually less silver on
earth than gold now? This is because we have used it up. Eventually, the
price of silver has to rise simply because we are running out of it. In a
year, these suggestions could easily be obsolete, so make sure you are well
educated before you invest your money.
 Coaching
I suggest you hire a coach, especially if you are actively trying to improve
your game, which you should be. Your coach should be someone you re-
spect that plays at a slightly higher level than you. Obviously, your coach
should be a winning player. I have had at least four coaches, as well as nu-
merous mentors. The difference between a coach and a mentor, in my
opinion, is that the coach spends a lot of time with you working on your
game, whereas a mentor is more like a friend who will answer any ques-
tions you have. I also discuss concepts with numerous poker friends all the
time.
I have spent around $20,000 on coaching and it has been well worth it. One
of my first coaching experiences was at sitngos. I was a solid winner at the
$200 sitngos but my win rate had started declining. This was mostly due to
the weaker players going broke. I had to improve in order to continue
playing the highest buy-in games. I paid a player $5,000 for 10 hours of
coaching. Even though his advice was basically “push more and call less,”
it was well worth it. Even if I increased my ROI by just 1 percent, or $2
per game, I would pay off the coaching over 2,500 games, which was how
many I played every month. You can pay a large sum of money for coach-
ing, but given the number of games you play, the money is almost insigni-
ficant.
One of my other coaching experiences was in preparation for the NBC
heads-up tournament the first year I played it. Even though I was a small
winner at $1,000 buy-in heads-up games online over a large sample, I
hired one of the best thinkers in the game to help me, even though he nor-
mally played the $100 heads-up game. We worked on my game quite a bit
and I ended up taking fifth place out of 64 people, cashing for $75,000.
While it is tough to tell if spending $2,000 for his coaching was worth it,
as I might have taken fifth place without it, notice that I break even if I in-
crease my ROI by 10 percent of the $20,000 buy-in. Even if I break even
on this tournament, I have this knowledge to use in the future, making hir-
ing a coach an easy decision.
The last coaching experience I will mention here was with Bill Seymour,
an older player that used to regularly play on the tournament circuit. Bill
was my first coach, and we continue to talk from time to time. He helped
me with my tilt issues, which plagued me in my younger days. He also
helped me think about life and poker in a way that helped me to become
less emotionally involved. He didn’t teach me too much about the tech-
nical aspects of poker, but he helped me with the mental side of the game.
I have had a wide range of coaches, and if I had to do it again, I would go
out of my way to find more. Spending a little money to get a winning
player’s perspective is almost always worth it.
I recently started coaching players. I had always shied away from coaching
because I didn’t think it was worth my time, but it has been a rewarding
experience. I’m happy anytime a student tells me he won something be-
cause of the instruction I gave him. Also, when you coach someone, you
learn a lot about your own game because you are forced to talk out your
thought process. Sometimes I will find myself saying something that
doesn’t make much sense; I quickly correct myself and learn about leaks
in my own game. Consider coaching a few hours each week once you get
to a level where you feel the information you could give a player would
improve his quality of life.
Many “coaches” are actually losing players that prey on unsuspecting
players that will do anything to improve their game. At Bellagio, I was
playing a $10/$20 no-limit cash game one night and an older player was
talking to another player at the table about how he was a poker coach. He
then min-raised A-A before the flop out of his 50-BB stack, which was
laughable right off the bat because most good players like to have at least
a semi-deep stack in a soft no-limit game. Three players called and the
flop came 9♣-8♣-2♠. Everyone checked to the coach, who bet 4 BBs.
The big blind check-raised all-in and the coach instantly called. The big
blind had 9♠-8♠ and busted the coach. The coach went nuts on the guy,
telling him how bad his call was before the flop with 9♠-8♠, and stormed
out of the room. Clearly, this guy is not someone you want helping you
with your game.
When looking for a coach, find someone you can verify is a winner, and
talk to some of his past students. If someone is a new coach, unless he is
an excellent player, you should generally shy away from him because a lot
of poker players can play well but can’t explain their thought process.
There are also numerous sites online where coaches post ads. In general, I
only get coaching from people I know are good. A great coach usually
doesn’t need to post ads because his schedule is full. Ask a past student
what he likes about the coach and what the coach did to improve his game.
The most important thing is to confirm that the coach is actually good at
poker. Paying a fraud to coach you is a huge mistake that could make your
game worse.
There are many training sites on the internet with videos in which great
players explain how they play poker. Even if you can afford a private
coach, I suggest you sign up to a few of these sites and watch videos that
pertain to the game you are trying to learn. I watch around 90 minutes of
training videos everyday. I also own and operate a training site,
www.FloatTheTurn.com, where I teach students how to win at basically
every form of tournament poker.
 Do Not Loan Money
When it comes to loaning money, the poker world is unlike any other.
Most poker players constantly loan and borrow money. This is usually be-
cause it is tough to get large amounts of cash from one place to another.
Some players loan money to other players simply because they don’t know
how to say “No.” Making a lot of loans for small amounts will quickly add
up if you fail to collect.
I was recently in a tournament when a player that was clearly trying to
scrounge up enough money to enter stood behind a player at my table
while he was in a hand. The player lost the pot and the guy asked him for
$500. He was told to go away. He came back about 30 minutes later and
told the player that refused him that he had come up with enough to play
the event and he hoped he got to bust him. The player later told the table
that the guy asking for money owed him $10,000. He also said he barely
knew anything about the guy but he saw him around a lot. While this may
be enough for some people to loan someone $10,000, it is not nearly
enough for me.
I have been pretty lucky when loaning money. I have loaned out a signific-
ant amount of money twice and gotten it back both times. I have made a
few smaller loans and failed to collect on about half of those. Loaning
money is a terrible idea. Some players say that they have to be willing to
loan money if they ever want to get a loan themselves. While this may be
true, if you manage your bankroll well, you should never need a loan.
The only time I need a loan is when I hear about an event and can’t get to
the bank or my box at Bellagio. I count on a close group of friends to front
me the money. I am always available to front money for them as well. All
these friends are in great financial shape and we all pay back the money as
soon as possible. Once you know you can trust someone, lending him
small amounts for short periods of time is never a problem. However, it
takes a lot to gain my trust, and only about six players truly have it.
This situation also comes up online because most poker players don’t like
keeping a large sum of money online. It is not uncommon for a player to
lose his bankroll online. From time to time, someone I barely know will
get in touch with me right before a tournament starts and ask me to send
him money, saying he will pay me back next time he sees me. Unless he is
in my close group of friends, he has no shot at getting money from me.
There’s no problem at all if he wants to give me money in person and then
have me send it online. Unless I have cash in hand, I never send money to
anyone except my group of close friends.
I may seem a little stingy with my money, but it keeps me from just hand-
ing it to someone else. If you plan your poker trips well and keep track of
your bankroll, you should rarely need a loan. If you never need a loan, you
should probably never give one.
 Find Ways to Solve Problems
Throughout life and poker, you will run into problems. The smart people
always find solutions while everyone else is complaining. Everytime I find
a much better play than everyone else, it makes me happy because I know
I just gained some equity.
The room where the WSOP is played is known to be very cold. This year
they made it even colder. I would estimate that some sections were around
45 degrees Fahrenheit. Players were constantly complaining to the floor
person, asking him to warm up the room, which he apparently could not
do. Instead of complaining, I put on my jacket, which I took with me be-
cause I knew it was going to be cold, and I ordered a hot tea, which tends
to keep me warm. While everyone else was shivering and complaining, I
was playing my “A” game.
Another problem occurs at most Bellagio tournaments, where you can only
buy into tournaments with chips. This is done to keep tournament registra-
tion lines short, and probably also to induce players to keep their money in
Bellagio chips, in hopes that they will gamble more. This results in a huge
line at the main cage to convert cash into chips just before a tournament
starts. Most players stand in line for up to 30 minutes. They fail to realize
that there is more than one place at Bellagio to change cash into chips. The
poker room has a cage where this can be done, and there is never a line.
When I know there is going to be a line at the main cage, my first stop is
the poker room cage.
At some casinos, where there is only one cage or I don’t know the layout, I
may be forced to wait in a long line to convert chips to cash. When this
happens, I watch poker videos on my iPhone instead of standing around
doing nothing. I absolutely hate wasting time, so I use that time doing pro-
ductive things, like studying poker.
All this really boils down to is thinking outside the box. If you run into a
problem, instead of complaining about it, try to fix it. If you can’t fix it,
find ways to deal with it.
 Differences Between Live and Online Poker
At every tournament I seem to hear a debate as to whether online or live
poker is tougher. Here is the answer. Online is significantly tougher than
live poker at an equivalent buy-in. This is because people play for much
more money live than online. The smallest tournament you will find in
most major casinos will have a buy-in of around $65. The smallest you
will find online is one cent. Those playing purely for fun play much smal-
ler online than live. In general, a $65 live tournament will be about as
tough as a $10 tournament online.
I am sure you have heard players complain that they can’t beat online
poker. This is because they do not play a fundamentally sound game.
When you play live poker, you can actually play much worse because the
average $50 player live is much worse than his online counterpart. These
players also lose faster online because they can play much more quickly
than they do live. You can easily play numerous tournaments per day on-
line whereas you can only play one or two live. Because of this, losing
streaks feel more brutal online.
There are a few other differences. First, you have fewer reads online.
When playing live, you can read your opponent’s tells. Online, you only
have timing tells and bet-sizing tells. This means you have to play a fun-
damentally sound game online, whereas you can get away with playing
suboptimally live if you read players well. The blinds usually increase
faster in online tournaments, forcing you to gamble sooner. Always know
the structure of a tournament before you play it. You don’t have to study
every level, but know about how fast you need to gamble in order to have a
chance to win.
You can also multi-table online. This will usually increase the win rate of
a winning player, but it will take concentration away from any individual
table. If you get to where you can play 24 tables at a time, as I often do,
you will find yourself playing on autopilot. In live poker, you only have to
pay attention to one table, and you should always be gathering reads on
players. Again, reads matter less in online poker. You play more hands per
hour online. This makes it easier to tilt because you can lose hands more
often. If it only takes three losing hands in 30 minutes to make you tilt off
your stack, you will do so much more often online than live.
I suggest you start online before playing live because it will force you to
learn fundamentally sound play. You will also get many more hands of ex-
perience per hour than at live poker. The only problem you will have when
transitioning to live poker is learning how to gather reads, which will
come with time. If you can beat the tougher games online, you should have
no problem beating live poker, even at much higher stakes than you nor-
mally play online.
 Online Tournaments
Unlike live tournaments, you can play numerous online tournaments at a
time, which means you have to pay attention to your stack size on each
table, as well as how deep-stacked you are in each event. In the higher
buy-in online tournaments, ranging from $100 to $1,000, you will usually
face very tough competition, similar to a $10,000 live event. If you are go-
ing to be an online tournament professional, you had better know how to
play technically sound poker.
Every Sunday, basically every online site runs satellites to a large buy-in
event. These create hugely profitable situations. Satellites are God’s way
of giving back to professional poker players, as it allows players into
large-buy-in tournaments when they have no business playing in them. If
you have a $7,000 bankroll, I see no problem at all in playing one of these
$200 events every Sunday. If you run hot for 16 hours, you can walk away
$250,000 richer.
I play Sunday tournaments about twice per month. When I play on Sunday,
I tend to play every $100 or higher buy-in event or higher across the major
sites. Playing only one or two events is usually a waste of time. In fact, I
would venture to say it is tough to ever make it in the long run playing on-
line tournaments if you only play one or two tables at a time. I guess if
you don’t really care about making money and are playing purely for fun,
feel free to play one table, but if you are playing poker to make money,
you need to play as many games as possible. Failing to do this is giving
away too much equity.
 How to Multi-Table
The biggest advantage of online poker is the ability to play more than one
table at a time. When I first played poker, my friend Dave “Raptor” Bene-
field introduced me to the concept of playing more than one table at a
time, and I gave it a try. At the time, the sites would only let you play four
tables at a time, which I quickly mastered. If you win $30 per hour per
table, you will win $120 per hour if you play four at a time, assuming
playing more tables does not discount your win rate. This is a pretty easy
way to get a hefty raise. Eventually the online sites allowed us to play 16
tables at a time, which gave us even a bigger raise. Your win rate per table
will start to drop off at this point. Suppose you normally have a 10-percent
ROI in sitngos while playing four tables but only a 5-percent ROI when
playing 16 tables. If you play $10 games, you will make $4 per hour 4-
tabling, assuming you play one set of games per hour, and $8 per hour
while 16-tabling. Despite winning half as much per table, 16-tabling
clearly makes more money.
I have taught numerous students. Some were capable of multi-tabling as
soon as I met them and some required a lot of work. If you are used to
playing one table at a time, try to play two the next time and stick with
that for around a week. At that point, you can add a third table and play
that for a week. Next, add a fourth table, and so on. When you play mul-
tiple tables, once you make your action on a table, you can’t sit there and
watch. You have to move your focus to another table, where the action will
be on you.
I suggest you tile your tables, which will make it easier to pay attention to
each one. When you tile your tables, you will have one table in each corner
of your monitor, with no tables overlapping. Once you exceed nine tables,
cascading them, which is overlapping the tables starting with the first
table in the top-left corner of your monitor and the last at the bottom-right
corner, is probably a bit easier if you are playing on one monitor. You can
still tile them if you have multiple monitors. If you put in enough time,
multi-tabling will become second nature. When I play poker online now, I
almost always play at least six tables at a time, and that is barely enough
to keep my attention.
If you get accustomed to playing a huge number of tables at a time, you
may find live poker boring. I combat this by making it a point to pay at-
tention to every detail of the table. I am constantly updating everyone’s
stack size in my head and trying to pick up tells. If your brain can focus on
16 tables at a time online, it can focus on every aspect of your live poker
table, which in time will make you a strong live player.
 It Takes a Year to Adjust to Live Poker
Every year a fresh batch of 21-year-old online players think they will take
the poker world by storm. Most go home with their tails between their
legs. They may be great online, but they fail to adjust.
Things went terribly when I turned 21 and moved from online to live
poker. Plays I would make online simply did not work in the live arena. I
would assume a player was weak, try to bluff him off his hand and be
called down by a set. Player’s ranges are different in live poker. Failure to
adjust to this is why online players fail at live poker.
You can pick up tells on opponents at live poker, and they can pick up tells
on you. Most online players think tells are overrated. They act with their
normal mannerisms and think it’s impossible to give away useful informa-
tion. This is the main reason why I like playing with young online players.
While they take aggressive lines, which is normally good, they are huge
tell boxes, so it is easy to know when they have a weak or strong hand. If I
know they are bluffing, I will make a hand like middle pair and call down.
These young players usually go crazy when I bust them with a weak hand,
wondering how I made the big call. They tell me how far I was behind
their range and how I was spewing equity by calling. They fail to realize
that their range was made up entirely of bluffs. When you know someone
is bluffing 100 percent of the time, it is pretty easy to call down with
middle pair.
Online players also have a problem focusing while playing only one table.
They get bored when they go from playing 1,000 hands per hour to 30, al-
lowing them to get fancy and spew off their chips. They are missing the
forest because of the trees. You only play 30 hands per hour, but a huge
amount of information is conveyed every hand. Learning everyone’s man-
nerisms and playing styles takes as much concentration as playing 24
tables at a time, in my opinion. They fail to acknowledge all this informa-
tion.
Hopefully, after reading this short chapter, the online players will avoid
the traps I fell into. It took me an entire year to figure out these things.
Maybe now they will only lose for a month instead of a year.
 Know How to Play Short-handed
Nine or ten people play at a table in most major tournaments. While you
should be able to play well at a full table, you also must be able to play
with fewer people at the table. The deeper you get in a tournament, the
fewer people will be at your table, meaning you will have to play short-
handed. You will usually be shorthanded when playing for the most money
during a tournament. Some examples are on the final-table bubble, from
11 players to 10, the TV final-table bubble, from seven to six, and for the
title, from two to one.
There are times when I am sitting at a good table in a tournament, maybe
with one other professional and eight weak players. We will lose a weaker
player and the professional will get a floor person to bring someone to fill
that seat as soon as possible. I suggest you keep quiet and keep the table a
little short. Gaining an extra bad player doesn’t do much for you, as the
table is still weak, whereas your equity will be greatly diminished if you
gain a professional player. In this spot, if the replaced player is a pro, there
will be three pros and seven amateurs, or 30 percent pros, and if it is an
amateur, there will be two pros and eight amateurs, or 20 percent pros. If
you just leave the seat empty, there will be two pros and seven amateurs,
or 22 percent pros. You are much better off taking the 22 percent than
gambling on getting another amateur.
It also pays to be good at short-handed poker when a bad player wants ac-
tion in a cash game but doesn’t want to wait for a seat to open in a full
game. When you see this situation arise, offer to start a new table with the
weak player, in which case you will be the only one with the opportunity
to take his money. You may be quickly joined by other players, but that is
still not too bad. You just want to play as many hands as possible with the
weak player, giving you a great shot to gain lots of equity.
There are many ways to practice short-handed poker, and playing online
might be the best. While the higher-stakes short-handed games are quite
tough and aggressive, the lower stakes are quite similar to what you will
encounter in live poker. You can also play in the short-handed capped
games, where you can practice playing with shorter stacks. Finally, you
can play sitngos, where you will have the opportunity to play full-handed,
short-handed and even heads-up in the same sitting. If you plan to play
mostly tournaments, I suggest you play a lot of sitngos simply because
they are the closest thing you can get to being at a final table without actu-
ally having to make it there. One of the reasons I do so well when I make a
final table is that I have more experience than basically everyone in the
world at playing sitngos. No matter how you choose to practice, make sure
you are well versed in short-handed poker, as it could be the difference
between first and seventh place.
 Soft Large-Buy-In Tournaments
There are a slew of tournaments each year that most pros make a point to
attend. Their fields are made up mostly of satellite qualifiers. Currently,
the largest such tournaments are the World Series of Poker, which will be
discussed in depth in the next chapter, and tournaments run by online sites.
Basically every large online site sponsors a tournament each year. Poker-
Stars runs numerous tournament series, the most notable being the
European Poker Tour. This circuit takes place mostly in Europe but also in
the Bahamas. These events are widely considered to be the softest large-
buy-in events of the year because so many players get in for relatively
little money. I actually met a guy in the Bahamas who won his seat to the
$10,000 event for $1 and could not afford to eat at the resort where the
tournament took place. Instead, he was eating ramen noodles. Clearly,
someone who is eating ramen noodles every meal for a week probably
won’t be playing his “A” game.
These tournaments are interesting because just getting in the money is a
huge ROI for many players. If you got into the tournament for $100, cash-
ing for the minimum of $15,000 feels like a huge win. You can abuse the
bubble much more than normal in these tournaments. Figure out who is
hurting for money at your table and abuse his blinds once you get any-
where near the bubble.
If you win a satellite into one of these events, go ahead and play it if you
have a decent bankroll. If you have $2,000 to your name and win a $12,000
package, I suggest you take the money, as a $14,000 bankroll is worth
much more than a $2,000 bankroll. If you have $50,000 to your name, I
say gamble it up and try to hit it big.
 World Series of Poker
The WSOP is widely regarded, especially by amateurs, as the top tourna-
ment series of the year. Most poker players dream of winning a bracelet,
which is awarded to the winner of each event. What they don’t realize is
that the WSOP has gone from being the top tournament series to a huge
moneymaking scheme by Harrah’s, as every event charges a huge rake.
But every pro, myself included, still shows up to play as many events as
possible, chasing that gold bracelet.
The way I see it, the WSOP is divided into four sets of tournaments. There
are the small-buy-in no-limit holdem events, which range in price from
$1,000 to $2,500 and attract from 1,000 to 6,000 entrants. There is also a
group of small-buy-in events featuring games like pot-limit Omaha,
seven-card stud and 2-7 triple draw. These tournaments usually get much
smaller fields than the holdem events, making them prime opportunities
for the pros to win a bracelet. There are the big-buy-in events, most with a
$10,000 buy in, besides the $50,000 mixed game tournament. These are
played in various games as well, like pot-limit holdem, limit holdem, 2-7
no-limit and seven-card stud. These events usually get only around 150 to
500 entrants, also making them prime choices for the top pros that are
playing purely to win bracelets.
Finally, there is the Main Event. In most players’ eyes this event crowns
the best poker player of the year. Obviously, this is ridiculous. In order to
win this tournament, which has drawn as many as 8,773 entrants, you have
to be extraordinarily lucky for eight solid days of play. But this is by far
the large-buy-in tournament with the weakest field, due to the huge num-
ber of players that get in cheaply through satellites. Most pros estimate
their ROI to be 1,000 percent in this tournament, which means they expect
to cash for $100,000 on average each year. While the pros have a huge
edge, any one person is still a huge long shot to win this event.
The structures of the WSOP events vary from year to year, but are usually
fairly poor, given the size of the buy-ins. This is mostly because the fields
are so large that with great structures, each event would take two weeks to
complete. Except for the Main Event, the $10,000 events usually have ab-
normally poor structures, which makes little sense to me. The Main Event
is known for its excellent structure, usually starting players with 200 big
blinds and having 120-minute levels. As far as I know, besides WPT
events, this is the slowest structure of any tournament, which is one of the
reasons why it has such prestige.
Most pros play as many events as they can during the WSOP, mostly be-
cause the fields are full of weak players. I play most holdem events, limit
and pot-limit included, plus some PLO tournaments. I also play a few
mixed-game events if I have nothing else going on. Most pros that are out
only to win bracelets play as many of the non-holdem events as possible,
as these have the smallest fields. If your goal is to only win bracelets, I
suggest you do that.
Sadly, bracelets have lost much of the prestige they had in the past. Twenty
years ago the WSOP had maybe 10 events, making each one special. Now
there are 57 events, meaning they will give out around 600 bracelets over
the next 10 years. There certainly is value in winning a bracelet though, at
least as long as the general public thinks winning a bracelet is significant.
In my opinion, the only bracelets that actually mean you are good at poker
are the ones you win by playing against mostly professional players, like
in the larger buy-in events that only get 300 or so people. However, most
people that win a tournament with 5,000 players either have some skill or
are quite lucky for a few days. The WSOP has been compared to a room of
8,192 monkeys flipping coins in a heads-up bracket. One monkey out of
the 8,192 will win 13 coin flips and be world champion of coin flipping
that year.
When planning for the WSOP, I expect to show up most every day to play
something. I make a point to find a few consecutive days with no events
that interest me. If I am feeling worn out when those times come along, I
will take a few days off. Getting burnt out during the WSOP is the last
thing you want. The players chasing bracelets create a schedule to avoid
being in another tournament during an event with a small field. Do
whatever is comfortable for you. Just make sure you don’t get burnt out.
As in all tournaments made up mostly of satellite qualifiers, you should
abuse the bubble mercilessly. I have watched numerous players blind off
to their last chip trying to get in the money in a WSOP event. Figure out
who is there to cash for the minimum and who is playing to win, as pick-
ing on the wrong person on the bubble can be detrimental. In the main
event, I would go wild on the bubble, raising basically every pot, espe-
cially if I had a big stack. Very few players that get into a $10,000 tourna-
ment for only $100 want to bust on the bubble. People have even folded A-
A pre-flop just to try to get in the money. Pushing any two cards is clearly
profitable against someone who is folding A-A.
The WSOP is so profitable for the pros because so many amateurs show
up, more than for any other tournament series. We have ESPN and the
hole-card camera to thank for this. Every year, numerous hopefuls come
out to Vegas with $5,000, looking to strike gold. Almost all of them go
home empty-handed. While I suggest taking shots at WSOP events, espe-
cially the smallest buy-in no-limit holdem events and the Main Event,
don’t invest a significant portion of your bankroll to do it. If you had a
$5,000 bankroll, you would be crazy to invest $1,000 to play one of the
events, especially if it would take you a long time to win that $1,000 back.
If you are grinding up a bankroll, you don’t want to lose 20 percent of it. If
you have $30,000 though, I see no problem with playing a few $1,000
tournaments. Just make sure you aren’t another one of the amateurs in the
field with a whopping -75 percent ROI.
I may sound a bit negative about the WSOP. I am actually just amazed that
any tournament series could be held in such high regard over any other.
Most major tournaments have a series of events that lead up to their main
event, but if you win one of those, you get a handshake and maybe a small
trophy if you are lucky. If you win a WSOP event, you’re put on the poker
map. I strongly believe the WSOP is good for professional poker players,
mainly because it gets the money out of the hands of the amateurs and it
also gets great ratings on television. As far as I can tell, the WSOP is here
to stay. I’d better start learning how to play razz and Omaha 8 or better so
I can start winning some bracelets.
 World Poker Tour
Professionals consider the World Poker Tour to be the toughest group of
tournaments in the world. The buy-ins are large, ranging from $3,500 to
$25,000, and the fields are tough. If you plan to play a WPT event, do your
homework and bring your “A” game.
WPT events stand apart from all other tournaments because of their slow
structure. You must know how to play with very deep, deep, medium and
short stacks to have any shot of winning these events. Very few amateurs
have won WPT events. The slow structure enables the professionals to
slowly grind down weaker players until they are broke.
WPT events usually last around five days. At Bellagio, where quite a few
WPT events are held, you play five 90-minute levels each day, which
makes for fairly short, enjoyable days. Despite this, I always take the day
off before an event to ensure that I play perfect poker for five days
straight.
Unlike the WSOP and other events made up of mostly satellite qualifiers,
most WPT events are comprised primarily of players that buy in with
cash. So, you can’t abuse the bubble as much. You should still try, but
make sure you are not trying to steal from the wrong guy.
If you are considering playing a WPT event, I suggest you find one with a
softer field. These are the ones with a decent number of satellite qualifiers,
including events at Commerce, Borgata and Foxwoods. These events usu-
ally have a decent mix of pros and amateurs, making them very winnable.
Unless you value actually winning a WPT title, stay away from the tough
ones.
Since I have two WPT titles and the record is three, there is huge value for
me in tying that record and I play most every WPT event. Also, I have a
pretty good grasp on how other professionals play, giving me a decent
edge on most of the field. If you finally reach the competence in your
poker game that few possess, you may be ready to take a shot at the WPT.
Just be sure you have a $1 million bankroll and nerves of steel.
 Traveling the Circuit
Most poker players dream of traveling the live tournament circuit. Travel-
ing to exotic locations around the world to play poker is something most
people would die for. While this may seem like the easy life, it has its
share of problems. I have spent a few years and a lot of money learning the
tricks of traveling the poker circuit. I hope I can you a lot of time and
money.
One of the toughest things is booking flights and hotel rooms. When I lose
an event, I usually want to get out of that town and either head to the next
stop or back home. Because of this, I always book one-way flights. I used
to book round-trip tickets but found the cost to change or cancel a flight is
simply too high. I have never had a problem getting a flight out of a city
because it was overbooked.
Make sure you do not have to pay for the entire stay at a hotel if you check
out early. I once booked a three-week stay in LA only to find out I could
only be there for a week. The hotel refused to cancel my remaining stay
because I had booked it using a discount code. I was stuck paying $3,500
for a hotel I could only use for a week. Luckily, I had friends that agreed to
stay in the room while I wasn’t there. This is another example of thinking
outside the box to avoid being stuck with a huge bill. I also never get a
suite unless it is basically the same price as a regular room, which is rarely
the case. If you are only going to be in a city for a week, you don’t need a
nice room. All you are going to do is sleep there. If you can save $2,000
every trip by staying in a regular room instead of a suite, you will end up
with $30,000 or so by the end of the year. Saving this $30,000 alone could
easily swing a break-even year into a small winner.
It really makes me unhappy to be forced to stay in a casino after I lose a
tournament. This is the main reason for leaving as soon as I bust from the
last event I plan to play. I value my happiness pretty highly. It is worth
spending a little extra for one-way flights. Also, if you leave a hotel early,
you save on your hotel bill, which will usually make up the difference
between one-way and round-trip fares. If you don’t mind staying at a
casino with nothing to do except play cash games for a few days, feel free
to book round-trip flights. Do whatever works for you.
Call the casino and ask for a poker rate when booking a hotel room. You
can stay at most casinos for under $100 per night if you tell them you are
there to play their poker tournament. Book early because these rooms tend
to sell out quickly. Again, if you can save $100 per night by using the
poker rate, you will save a huge amount of money over time.
I tend to book my flight and hotel room around a month before I am sup-
posed to arrive. As you approach the date of an event, you run the risk of
paying more for flights and hotel rooms. I know some players that always
book their flights the day before. From time to time, they are stuck with a
huge bill simply because they failed to plan ahead. I always arrive one day
before I play. Some players arrive on the day of the event. I find that if I
don’t get a good night’s sleep, my EV drastically decreases. Also, if your
flight is delayed, you might miss the event. This happened to me when I
was flying from Pensacola, Fla., to Monte Carlo. I was set to arrive a day
ahead of time but a huge storm in Atlanta delayed me by 12 hours. I ar-
rived with enough time to get a little sleep before the big tournament.
Quite a few players that were set to arrive the day of the event were too
late to register. They ended up flying around the world only to be told,
“Sorry, you can’t play.” That would put me on tilt for years.
Always show up at the airport with time to spare. Missing a flight is al-
ways a huge hassle. It only took missing one flight for me to find this out.
Be at the airport, ready to check in at least 90 minutes before your flight
leaves. Take things to work on or study while waiting in lines and sitting
on the airplane. Always make the most of your time.
Carrying money is always a tricky subject. Most casinos allow you to re-
gister online for tournaments now, which is awesome because you don’t
have to travel with large amounts of cash. Wiring money to most casinos
is a pretty big hassle so I avoid that when possible. I have found it much
easier to wire money to the main cage instead of the poker room. I think
this is because they deal with wired funds all the time, whereas it doesn’t
happen as often in the poker room. When I went to the WSOP for the first
time, I wired all the money I had to the Rio. The cage misplaced the
money and my friends had to front money for me for the entire week while
I was waiting for the Rio to find my cash. If I do wire money now, I always
take enough cash to last a day or two.
This should be obvious, but you don’t want to keep a large sum of money
at your house. Keep it in the bank or in a lock box at your home casino. I
keep my money in the bank and at Bellagio, as that is where I play when I
am home in Vegas. Keeping a lot of money at your house is just asking for
trouble.
Most casinos are filled with unhealthy food. While I am not obsessive
about healthy eating all the time, I still try to order whatever looks healthi-
est on the menu. Most places have a sandwich shop where you can get
something like a turkey sandwich. Most places also have a salad or fruit
plate. Don’t spend all your time eating prime rib at the buffet, as this will
quickly put you out of commission.
I have been fortunate not be drawn to the partying that goes on the day be-
fore a major event. In fact, I rarely party and spend all night out because I
don’t function well when I am tired. When you are at a casino to play a
poker tournament, you are there to work. You should never be out all night
drinking the day before the main event. You probably flew across the
world to play a poker tournament. If you wanted to party, you could have
stayed home.
Keeping in touch with loved ones is tough while on the road. If you have a
girlfriend or wife, set up a video chat program on your computer so you
can talk to her. Be sure to call from time to time so she doesn’t worry
about you. Remember that even though you are on a poker vacation,
people still care about you.
I am sure there are many small things I have not covered here. Whenever
you encounter a situation and are unsure of the optimal play, think about
what would be best for your poker career and your happiness.
 Chapter 9

Hand Examples

I firmly believe that putting yourself in other players’ shoes is one of the
best ways to get great at the game with only a small commitment of time.
When you are at the poker table, you should pay attention to every hand
and constantly put everyone on a range of hands so you can better learn
that most important skill. Below are discussions of 30 hands I’ve played
throughout my career. I will cover numerous topics, although you will see
that my decisions often depend on my opponents. The hands are in no par-
ticular order because I want you to be able to jump between vastly differ-
ent topics in the blink of an eye at the poker table. If you are in the habit of
only thinking about pre-flop decisions and are totally confused when a
post-flop decision arises, whatever knowledge you have will be useless. I
strongly urge you to write down what you would do in each situation be-
fore you look at my play, so you can see if we are thinking the same way,
and if we differ, you can hopefully see why. Good luck!
 Hand 1
This hand came up in the eight-handed $20,000 Epic Poker League event.
We were down to 16 players, with 12 getting paid. We were getting close
to the money but not quite close enough to play like a nit and guarantee a
$40,000 payday. The stacks are:
UTG: 50 BBs
2nd: 50 BBs
3rd: 50 BBs
4th: 35 BBs. This player is known to be good and aggressive, although he
is generally on the tighter side. I have seen him get out of line twice over
the last few years.
Hijack: 80 BBs. This player is super-aggressive and constantly applies
pressure when he thinks he can get away with it.
Button: 45 BBs. This is me. I have generally played tight and aggressive.
SB: 40 BBs
BB: 40 BBs

Action folds to the player in 4th position, who makes his standard raise to
2 BBs. Player 5 re-raises to around 5.5 BBs. He has been re-raising quite a
lot in this event and has built his stack up from around 40 BBs at this
table. I am on the button with J♠-J♣. This is a tricky spot because if I re-
raise to around 12 BBs, I will be priced in to call player 4’s all-in if he de-
cides to go with his hand. I will be in rough shape against his range, which
will be something like Q-Q+ and A-K. The hijack, while he did re-raise,
probably doesn’t have too strong of a range, as he is known to re-raise of-
ten.
I think my options here are to re-raise to around 20 BBs with the intention
of calling either all-in, or to fold now. I don’t think calling the 5.5-BB re-
raise is ever an option. When someone cold-calls a re-raise, he often has a
hand like J-J, 10-10 or A-K that he didn’t want to fold or re-raise. Turning
your hand face-up against good players is never a good option, especially
considering that your stack will be fairly small compared to the pot. What
matters most here is the initial raiser’s opening range. If he is only raising
something like 7-7+, A-Q+ and a few suited connectors, I should probably
fold, as hands that beat me make up too much of that range. If he is raising
very wide, I think re-raising is fine.
Given my reads, this is a fairly easy fold. Sadly, I re-raised, got all-in
against the initial raiser’s K-K and lost a large pot.
 Hand 2
This hand came up in a $1,000 live tournament. We are a few hours into
the day, so payout considerations are irrelevant. We are playing nine-
handed. The stacks are:
4th: 60 BBs. This player is overly aggressive and loves to try to steal the
blinds.
Button: I have 20 BBs. I have been playing fairly tight and aggressive be-
cause I have been short for a while.
The players in the blinds are both pretty tight, have around 50 BBs and
don’t get too far out of line.

Player 4 raises to 2.5 BBs. The action is folded to me and I go all-in with
A♠-8♦. In this spot, my opponent’s range is very wide, as he has been get-
ting away with stealing often. Having an ace in my hand greatly hurts my
opponent’s range because he has fewer combinations of hands that contain
an ace. This turns into a simple math problem. I assume my opponent is
raising 50 percent of hands and will call with 15 percent of those hands.
The equity from pushing is:
(proportion of folds)(size of pot) + (proportion of calls)(equity in pot -
amount put in pot)
So, we have:
(0.85)(4.5) + (0.15)[42(0.3) - 20] = 3.825 - 1.11 = 2.715 BB profit
Clearly, this push is +EV. I would have a profitable all-in even if my op-
ponent called more often. Also, I will rarely have less than 30-percent
equity with any hand, so I can push in this spot often and expect to profit
nicely. Obviously, if you start going all-in a lot, your opponent will call
more often, but this play will remain profitable as long as you don’t use it
consistently against the same person. Feel free to tinker around with the
formula to figure out when you should and shouldn’t be pushing. Take into
account that the SB and BB will each wake up with a monster around 3
percent of the time. This is why you should prefer to make these light re-
raises from late position.
 Hand 3
This hand is from a $10,000 WPT event. It is the middle of day 2, which
means we are nowhere near the money.
Button: 50 BBs. This is me. I have been fairly aggressive, although not
crazy.
SB: 100 BBs. This player has had more success at mixed games, although
he is a WPT champion and certainly knows how to play no-limit.
BB: 50 BBs. This player has been fairly tight and aggressive.
Action folds to me and I raise to 2.5 BBs with A♠-4♣. The player in the
small blind re-raises to 7 BBs. The big blind folds.
I only have two options here. I can either go all-in or fold. Given that the
SB has been fairly aggressive, I think this is often a push. I can run an
equity calculation, as in the previous hand, to figure out if pushing will be
profitable. I need to know my opponent’s re-raising range, which is tough,
since players don’t re-raise too often. I think he will re-raise my button
raises fairly often.

If he re-raises 28 percent of the time and will call with 28 percent of those
hands, or a range of 5-5+, A-J+, I have:
(0.72)(11) + (0.28)[102(.28) – 50] = 7.92 - 6 = 1.92 BBs
This push isn’t super profitable against the range I assigned the player, but
it is still +EV. It will also let my opponent know he can’t push me around.
Notice again that this push becomes awful against a tighter range, and be-
comes significantly more profitable if he re-raises more than I assumed.
Defining ranges is very important because when you risk your stack, you
want to be sure you have an edge. In this spot, I went all-in and my oppon-
ent quickly folded.
 Hand 4
This hand is from a $20 online tournament. This is also a rebuy event, al-
though it will not matter much in this hand. Everyone has around 80 BBs.
We are playing 20/40.
I raise UTG to 120 with 4♦-4♠. Action folds around to the small blind,
who calls. I have no reads on my opponent, as this is the first hand of the
tournament.
The flop comes Q♥-Q♠-5♥.

My opponent checks and I make a standard continuation bet of 160. Con-

tinuation-betting in this spot is mandatory. I want my opponent to fold all
random overcards because they have decent equity. I also don’t want to
check back and let my opponent bet the turn when a card higher than a 5
comes, as I will probably have to fold. My opponent check-raises to 320,
which is the minimum raise. I think his range is something like a queen, a
5, a flush draw, any pair and a few hands like A-J that he thinks may be
good. While 4-4 may be ahead of this range at the moment, it is in terrible
shape. I lose to most pairs, any 5 and any queen, and I am behind flush
draws. I am only in good shape against hands like A-J, and even then I’m
not in great shape. Weak players constantly call here and fold to turn bets.
A much better play is to fold and move on to the next hand.
 Hand 5
This hand is from a $10,000 WPT event I played at Foxwoods. We had just
gotten in the money. Once this happens, I tend to not get too out of line
while waiting for the short stacks to bust, but I still try to chip up. The rel-
evant stacks are:
Hijack: I have 50 BBs. I have been fairly loose and aggressive so far.
Cutoff: 30 BBs. This player has been tight so far.
Button: 70 BBs. This player is a WPT champion who has no problem tak-
ing flops and getting out of line.
SB: 40 BBs. This player is known to be super tight.
BB: 20 BBs This is an amateur who tends to play straightforwardly.
I raise with A♠-10♣ to 2.2 BBs out of my 50-BB stack. The button calls
and we see a flop of K♠-10♦-3♥.

I make a 3-BB continuation bet and my opponent calls. He could have a

fairly wide range at this point. I imagine he would raise with top pair, top
kicker or better. This leaves us with a range of pairs 10 or higher, Q-J, A-
Q, A-J, Q-9 and J-9. He is also capable of floating with air here from time
to time, although I imagine most of his floats would be with gutshots.
The turn is the A♣. Before I get too excited, I need to see how this affects
his range. If he has a gutshot with an ace, he will almost certainly bet the
turn if I check. If he has something like K-9 or J-10, he will almost cer-
tainly fold to a bet, which is bad for me. If he has one of the missed gut-
shots, he will probably bet if I check. So, betting only gives me value from
hands like K-Q and K-J that may check behind. If I check, I allow him to
bluff his air, value-bet most of his value hands and save money when he
has Q-J. So, I check. He bets 7 BBs into the 12-BB pot and I call.
The river is the 5♣. I want him to continue betting with air, so checking is
the only option. If I lead into him here, he will call with any value hand
worse than mine and raise if he has better. So, it’s almost always bad to
lead with medium-strength made hands. I check and he bets 16 BBs. I have
a pretty easy call. Again, check-raising makes no sense because he will
only call when I’m beat. I think he would value-bet all aces and all worse
2-pair hands. He may or may not continue with his gutshots, but that
doesn’t matter much. I call and lose to his Q-J.
Notice if I had bet the turn and he had raised, I would be in an awful spot
and probably end up broke. Instead, I left myself with around 13 BBs,
which I used to take eighth place in the event. If you pay attention, there
are numerous spots in tournament poker where you can give up a little
value and have a few chips left when you are beat. This trade is almost al-
ways worth making.
 Hand 6
This hand is from a $500 online tournament. We are early in the event.
Everyone has 200 BBs.
A player I don’t know limps from second position. I have A♥-3♥ in
fourth position. I make it 5 BBs. You can either raise or limp behind in this
spot. I like to raise early in an event in order to find out how often and ag-
gressively players are going to defend their limps. If they call and play
well after the flop, I am probably better off calling behind and taking a
flop. If they either fold pre-flop or call my pre-flop raise and check-fold
post-flop when they miss, then I should be raising. Everyone folds to the
limper and he calls.
The flop comes Q♠-8♠-3♠. My opponent checks.

The equity difference between continuation-betting and checking is min-

imal in this spot. If I bet the flop, my opponent will probably continue
with all decent flush draws and hands like middle pair or better, all of
which I’m not too happy about being up against. If I check back the flop
and he bets the turn, I should probably fold most of the time. If he checks
the turn, I can then bet for value and protection; he may still call with a
flush draw, but now I am in decent shape. I should bet against aggressive
opponents that will bet the turn simply because I didn’t continuation-bet
the flop. I would tend to check against a passive, straightforward player,
since he will probably not bluff the turn too often. In a $500 tournament,
which is fairly large for online, I decide to bet 2/3 pot because players at
this level tend to be aggressive. I take the pot down with the continuation
bet.
Notice how much thought went into a simple continuation bet. Think about
these situations away from the table, so you will have no problem making
the optimal play when the situation arises.
 Hand 7
This hand is from a $1,500 WSOP event. We are fairly early in the day.
The relevant stacks are:
4th: 200 BBs. This is an older player that likes to limp.
Hijack: 200 BBs. This is a 40-year-old guy that won his way in through a
satellite.
Button: 200 BBs. I have been fairly tight and aggressive so far.
Action is folded around to player 4, who limps. Player 5 raises to 3 BBs.
When players make small raises over limps, you need to figure out if they
are raising with their standard opening range or adjusting to take advant-
age of the limper. Since I know this $1,500 is a big deal for this player, I
assume he has a decent hand that he would normally open-raise. I call with
10♠-10♣. I really like calling in spots like this because I am on the button
and my hand will be greatly disguised. If I re-raise to around 10 BBs, I
will usually take a flop in position against the initial raiser. I will be un-
sure about his range and will often see a tricky flop with overcards. Also,
if I re-raise and my opponent re-raises, I will often have to fold the best
hand. The limper calls as well.

The flop comes A♣-5♠-2♦. Everyone checks to me and I check back. I

plan to bet the turn if a card lower than a 10 comes and continue checking
if the turn is an overcard to my pair. I could bet the flop here but I think I
get more accurate information about the strength of my opponents’ hands
if they check through the turn as well.
The turn is the Q♠, which isn’t good for me. Everyone checks again. At
this point, I assume I am behind and plan to check-fold to any river bet.
Even if I am ahead on the turn, I will often not be ahead when the river
comes.
The river is the J♥. The raiser bets half-pot and wins. I could have con-
sidered stabbing on the flop but after that, I think I am forced to simply
give up. Notice how I gave myself a great shot to win a pot with 10-10
without putting much money in the pot. In spots like this, you are giving
up a small pre-flop win in exchange for the opportunity to stack your op-
ponent if you flop a set when he has a strong holding.
 Hand 8
This hand came up in the same $1,500 WSOP event as the hand above. We
are a bit deeper in the day, although nowhere near the money. The stacks
are:
UTG: 50 BBs. This is me. I have been playing fairly loose and aggress-
ively, as I normally do in WSOP events.
2nd: 90 BBs. This is a young player I have never seen before. He has gen-
erally been loose and aggressive.
BB: 100 BBs. This player is around 50 years old and loves to see flops.
I limp with 8♠-8♦ from first position. I could certainly raise in this spot
but against weaker competition, which is common in WSOP events, I
really want to see a flop. I would tend to open-raise or fold in a larger buy-
in WPT event. The young player to my left raises to 3 BBs. I imagine his
range is fairly strong here, even though he has been rather aggressive so
far. I don’t think he is going to go out of his way to try to outplay me from
such an early position. I call. The big blind calls as well, which doesn’t
mean much, as he likes to see flops.

The flop is 10♥-5♣-2♣. Everyone checks.

The turn is the 6♠. The BB checks and I bet 2/3-pot. In this situation, the
initial raiser probably has overcards, as he would have certainly bet an
overpair on the flop. I also imagine he would bet any paired hand on the
flop. Checking lets me know he is either slow-playing a monster, like 10-
10 or 5-5, or he has nothing. Sets are a tiny part of his range, so I can as-
sume he has nothing. The BB could have a piece of this board, although he
probably doesn’t have a 10, as he would have bet either the flop or turn.
This leads me to believe I have the best hand by far. I don’t like checking
the turn because there are a lot of bad rivers that could easily cost me the
pot. I would also not be too prone to check-folding basically any river be-
cause my range looks so weak that the aggressive raiser may bet the river
with anything. I bet the turn and pick up the pot.
If the BB had called my turn bet, I would have checked behind or folded to
his bet on most rivers. If the raiser had called my turn bet, I would have
check-called most rivers. When you make a bet early in a hand, try to have
a plan for later streets. Thinking only one street at a time is like thinking
only one move at a time while playing chess. It is a recipe for disaster.
 Hand 9
This hand is from a $10,000 online tournament, which is the largest buy-in
event that runs online. The blinds are 25/50. Everyone has around 500
BBs.
Action folds to me on the button and I raise to 3 BBs, or 150, with
A♠-9♣. A player in the big blind, who I think to be a solid winner online,
calls. The flop is 9♠-6♥-5♦. The BB checks and I make a standard con-
tinuation bet of 200 into the 325 pot. My opponent instantly raises to 550
out of his 25,000 stack. I know my opponent is loose, aggressive, and per-
fectly capable of making plays, so folding is out of the question. Re-rais-
ing is a poor option because it will force my opponent off all worse hands,
so calling is the only real play. There are numerous bad turn cards for my
hand. I must be willing to call down on most of them.

The turn is the 3♥. My opponent bets about 2/3-pot, 900 into 1,400. I fully
expected him to continue betting on most turns. Even though this is a total
blank, it would make sense for him to bluff here because he is trying to
represent such a strong range by check-raising the flop that no turn should
scare him. He would also bet on all overcards because those will generally
make my range weaker. So, since I expect him to bet on every turn card
and I am unsure which ones actually help him, if I think I was ahead on the
flop, which I certainly do, I have an easy call on the turn. As on the flop, I
don’t plan on folding to too many river bets.
The river is the 10♠. My opponent checks. Now I think he either has a
weak two pair, an overpair, top pair or nothing. I expected him to check-
call with made hands, and to check-fold or fire a third barrel with air. Situ-
ations come up all the time where my opponent will only call my river
value bet when I am beat, and this is one of those spots. It makes checking
behind an easy decision. My opponent turns over K♣-8♣ and I win a nice
pot.
 Hand 10
This hand takes place in the same $10,000 event as the previous hand. We
are playing 25/50. The stacks are:
2nd: 500 BBs, or 25,000 chips. This player is unknown to me, which
makes me think he got in through a satellite.
4th: I have 550 BBs, or 27,500 chips.
Button: 450 BBs, or 22,500 chips. This is the player that tried to run a
bluff on the previous hand.
Player 2 limps and I raise with A♣-A♠ to 5 BBs, or 250. No other play
makes sense here. I would never limp behind with A-A and stacks this
deep. You want to start building a pot, especially when you currently have
the nuts. The player on the button calls. He could have a decently wide
range made up of pairs, decent aces, suited aces, good Broadway hands
and suited connectors. The initial limper also calls, probably with some-
thing like a small pair, suited connectors or a suited ace.
The flop comes 4♦-3♣-3♦. The initial limper leads out for 400 into the
825 pot. I view this as a bet to find out where he is at. If this is the case, a
large raise will usually blow him off his hand, which is never good. I could
call, but with a few draws out and very deep stacks, I am fine putting a
little more money in the pot. I make it 1,050. The button folds and the
limper calls. I think he has a weak overpair or maybe some sort of straight
or flush draw.
The turn is the A♥, which gives me a lock on the hand. My opponent
checks, which doesn’t really mean anything. The ace is generally bad for
his range because if he had a pair, he now has to worry about the ace, and
if he had a draw, he missed. My bet should be fairly small to try to induce
a crying call. I bet 1,650 into the 2,925 pot. Looking back, I would have
bet slightly smaller, maybe around 1,200. My opponent calls.
The river is the 2♦. This is a great card for me because if my opponent had
a flush or straight draw, he probably just hit it. When a player draws to a
hand like a straight or flush and gets there, he tends not to fold to any reas-
onable bet. If my opponent has a pair lower than aces, he will almost cer-
tainly fold to any bet. So, I need to make a fairly large bet to get value
from the draws that just completed. My opponent checks and I bet 5,900
into the 6,225 pot. Another option would be to overbet the river to try to
get maximum value from the flushes. I could bet something like 9,600, but
I think some decent or scared players, like my opponent, might fold. My
opponent tanks for a while before calling with 6-5, and I win a nice pot.
 Hand 11
This hand occurred in the same $10,000 online event. We are now playing
50/100, making stacks half the size as in the previous hands, although we
are still deep-stacked. The stacks are:
4th: 300 BBs, or 30,000 chips. This is me. I have been fairly aggressive so
far, winning quite a few uncontested pots.
Hijack: 380 BBs, or 38,000 chips. This is an excellent player that adjusts
well to every situation. He tends to be aggressive.
I raise with A♦-Q♦ to 3 BBs, or 300, from middle position. The player to
my left re-raises to 1,050. His range could either be very tight or very
wide, depending on what he thinks of my game. Given my previous ag-
gression and our history together, I think he will be re-raising fairly wide.
I could 4-bet him, but I will be out of position throughout the hand and
will have no clue where I stand, so calling is the clear play.
The flop comes K♣-Q♥-5♣ and I check.

This is almost always my play when I’m first to act in a 3-bet pot from out
of position and I’m not the aggressor. My opponent bets 1,600 into the
2,250 pot. I can’t justify any play except a call. Folding would be far too
weak. Even though I’m crushed by A-A, K-K, Q-Q, A-K and K-Q, I still
beat a lot of hands in my opponent’s re-raising range.
The turn is the 5♦. I check and my opponent checks behind. I now think I
have the best hand a decent amount of the time, although it is tough to be
certain. Good players will usually check back here with most weak kings
and most queens. While my opponent may double-barrel with air from
time to time, I don’t think he will always do this.
The river is the 9♣. This is a pretty bad card for my hand because I now
lose to Q-9 and J-10 in addition to the hands previously listed. If I bet
here, I am unlikely to be called by a worse hand besides exactly Q-J and
Q-10, so I check. I would probably call if my opponent bet here; my range
probably looks fairly weak to him, since I checked the turn and river. I ex-
pect he would try to get me off my probable middle-strength hand if he
has total air. My opponent thinks for a while before checking behind with
A-9. If he didn’t get a decent amount of showdown value on the river, I
would have probably snapped off a little bluff.
 Hand 12
Here is another hand from the $10,000 online event. We are playing
100/200. The stacks are:
Hijack: 150 BBs, or 30,000 chips. This is me. I have been fairly aggress-
ive, although I still have not shown down many hands.
SB: 115 BBs, or 23,000 chips. This player just got moved to the table and
is unknown to me.
BB: 100 BBs, or 20,000 chips. This is a solid, winning online player.
Action folds to me and I raise to 600 with J♦-6♦ from middle position. I
could obviously fold this hand, but I like raising here from time to time to
mix things up, especially if players aren’t playing back at me too often.
Both blinds call. When the small blind calls, you should assume this
greatly widens the big blind’s calling range because he is now in a decent
relative position and is getting better odds. The small blind’s calling range
should be fairly tight, although most players defend much too loosely.
The flop comes A♠-K♦-Q♦, giving me a gutshot and flush draw.

Both players check to me and I bet 1,200 into an 1,800 pot. Given how
deep-stacked we are, I think betting here is mandatory. I am not concerned
with getting blown off my hand, as I can easily call and raise. Any bet size
between half- and ¾-pot is fine. The small blind calls and the big blind
folds. Most people would raise with the nut-flush draw and top pair, so I
believe the small blind has a hand like top pair, a pair plus gutshot or a
weaker flush draw.
The turn is the 5♦, completing my flush. To my surprise, my opponent
leads into me for 2,000 into the 4,200 pot. If my opponent is a weak
player, which could be the case, he could show up with a weaker flush
quite often. He could also have something like top pair and no longer want
to give free cards. He will probably bet the river with a flush, and I can
then go all-in, getting maximum value. He will probably fold to a turn
raise if his hand is weaker than a flush. If I call, he will probably bet the
river, either for value with hands like two pair or as a bluff. The only
hands I may be able to get it in with that are behind right now are A-5 and
maybe J-10. Raising the turn is therefore not a good option, so I call.
The river is the 4♥. My opponent bets 4,000 into the 8,200 pot, with
15,200 left in his stack. I am starting to believe he does have a decently
strong hand like two pair, or maybe a slow-played straight. He will call
any raise with a flush or straight. He may be able to get away from the
two-pair hands if I push, but I don’t think those make up much of his
range. He will probably fold to any raise if he has decided to lead with
some weird top-pair hand. So, most of his strong range will call a push and
most of his weaker made-hand range will not call any raise. This makes
going all-in the best option, so I push. My opponent instantly folds and I
win a nice pot. He probably had something like A♥-10♦ and thought lead-
ing the turn was the right play.
 Hand 13
This hand is also from the $10,000 online tournament. My opponent is the
player in the previous hand. We are now playing 200/400. The stacks are:
Cutoff: I have 160 BBs, or 64,000.
BB: 37 BBs, or 15,000. This player seems generally weak, although he
may be able to make some moves.
Action folds to me and I raise to 1,200 from the cutoff with J♠-7♠. I
would prefer a raise to 1,000 instead, as stacks are starting to get shorter,
but 1,200 is fine. My opponent in the big blind re-raises to 2,600. When
you see players in the blinds re-raise to a smaller than normal amount, un-
less it is their standard re-raise size, they almost always have a very strong
hand. I love to call in these spots and take a flop as long as I am getting
decent immediate and implied odds. I am looking to flop two pair or bet-
ter, or a flush draw. I would much prefer a hand like J♠-10♠ to J♠-7♠ be-
cause J♠-10♠ can flop a lot of straight draws. I call 1,400 more.
The flop comes K♣-J♥-7♥.

Luckily, my opponent goes all-in for 12,400 into the 5,400 pot. Amateurs
love to make this play when they have a hand they don’t want to see out-
drawn. In this spot, I expect to see A-A, A-K and maybe a few crazy
bluffs. With my opponent’s entire range crushed, I have an easy call. Note
that I would have an easy fold if the flop were K-J-6 instead, which is not
what I was trying to flop. I make a trivial call and my opponent shows A-
A. The river is an ace and I lose a nice pot.
Clearly, my opponent played his hand terribly because, unless I flopped a
monster, I was going to fold. His all-in bet did nothing except force out
hands with very little equity while keeping in hands that have A-A in bad
shape. He would have been much better off betting small and keeping me
in the pot with a hand like middle pair.
 Hand 14
Here is one final hand from the $10,000 online event. The blinds are now
300/600. The stacks are:
3rd: 20 BBs, or 12,000 chips. This player had a backing deal with a major
online site. He is an older player that is known to get wild from time to
time.
Cutoff: 50 BBs, or 30,000 chips. I know very little about this player, as he
is new to the table.
Button: I have 100 BBs, or 60,000 chips.
Action folds to seat 3, who limps. I don’t know what to think about his
limping range, although I imagine it is either very strong or very weak.
When you don’t know someone’s range, imagine a few ranges he could
have, assign a likelihood percentage to each and continue playing. The
cutoff also limps, which I think he would do with a wide range. Once one
player opens for a limp, players tend to limp behind with a much wider
range, expecting to see a cheap flop. I raise to 3,600 with K♠-Q♣.
Action folds back to the initial limper, who raises all-in for 12,000 chips.
The second limper folds. There is 17,100 in the pot and I have to call 8,400
more, meaning I have to win 33 percent of the time to break even. I will
assign my opponent two ranges, one tight and one loose. For simplicity, I
will assume he has each range half the time.
I have 28-percent equity against a range of A-A to 10-10 and A-K, and 62-
percent equity against a range of middle pairs and a bunch of suited and
unsuited connectors.
My average equity is 28(0.5) + 62(0.5) = 45 percent. This is more than
enough to call, since I only need 33 percent to break even. Notice that you
could assume he is pushing with the tight range more often, which would
make a call closer. I make the call and my K♠-Q♣ beats his insane bluff
with 6♣-4♠.
 Hand 15
This hand occurred in a $500 live tournament. We are playing 50/100. We
are fairly early in the day. The stacks are:
2nd: 32 BBs, or 3,200 chips. This player is older and has already lost 1,800
chips from his 5,000-chip starting stack.
4th: 62 BBs, or 6,200 chips. I have been playing tight and aggressively.
Hijack: 90 BBs, or 9,000 chips. This player is young and seems to be loose
and aggressive.
Cutoff: 45 BBs, or 4,500 chips. This player seems to be aggressive but not
far too out of line.
Player 2 limps, as do I with Q♣-J♣. I like playing cheap flops with good
suited connectors in spots like this. Notice that if I raise, I may be re-
raised by either the initial limper or someone behind me, which I don’t
really want. Folding is also an option I generally don’t take. The player be-
hind me limps and the cutoff raises to 500. Since he is aggressive, he
could be doing this with a wide range of hands. The initial limper and I
both call. The limper in the hijack folds, which is basically always a mis-
take. His limping range should comprise hands he wants to see a flop with,
and getting such great odds, he should call. If he has a hand that flops
poorly, like A♠-6♣, he should either fold or raise pre-flop instead of
limping.
The flop comes A♥-10♦-6♦.
Everyone checks. This doesn’t tell us much about the initial limper’s
range, but it does let us know that the cutoff probably missed this flop. He
could certainly have a hand like K-K, but will almost certainly fold the
hand to enough aggression later.
The turn is the Q♠. This gives me a pair plus gutshot, always a good thing.
The initial limper now bets 300 into the 1,750 pot. While this is a very
weak bet, I think calling is the right play, as he only has 2,400 left in his
stack and I am getting excellent immediate odds. If I raise to 1,000 and he
goes all-in, I will have to make a crying call. I call and the initial raiser
calls as well. His range is probably similar to my hand, junky pairs plus a
junky draw. I plan to check down if I don’t hit on the river.
The river is the K♥, giving me the nuts. The initial limper bets 1,300 into
the 2,650 pot, leaving very little behind. While it would be nice to figure
out a way to stack the player behind me, I think it is going to be tough. I
really want to raise the river; the river bettor will probably call off if he
has something like two pair or a set. I think a min-raise on the river, which
will put the bettor all in while giving the initial raiser on the cutoff some-
thing to think about, is probably the best play because he may think I am
making an insane bluff and find a call with two pair. Instead, I go all-in.
This isn’t horrible, but it is suboptimal.
Even if you play well, you will make mistakes from time to time. Learn
from your mistakes so you don’t repeat them. If you mess up the same
situation over and over, you are probably not doing something right. In
this hand, everyone folded and I won a nice pot.
 Hand 16
This hand took place in a $1,000 sitngo tournament at the WSOP. First
place gets all the money in these events, so there is no point trying to blind
off in order to go deeper in the event.
Everyone has around 10 BBs. We are currently eight-handed. A 30-year-
old recreational player goes all-in from third position. He has been mildly
aggressive, although he has only shown down good hands. I have A♠-J♣
in the cutoff seat. Most players would snap-call, as this is a pretty great
hand for a 10-BB stack, but you should determine your calling range in
these situations, so you can call more efficiently in the future.

I first need to assign my opponent a range of hands. Since I think he is de-

cent and aggressive, I believe he will be pushing any pair, any two Broad-
way cards, any ace and a few suited connectors. A-J has around 58-percent
equity against that range, giving me an easy call, even with three players
yet to act. Notice that I need to be more than 50 percent to win because of
the players behind me. I also want to profit a bit from the call, so I estim-
ate I need around 55-percent equity to call. If I think my opponent is push-
ing this range, I should be calling with something like A-10+ and 7-7+.
Next, I need to figure out if I can call if my opponent is pushing tightly. If
I assume he will push 5-5+, A-5s+, A-10+, K-J+, any suited Broadway
hand and a few suited connectors, then A-J only has 50-percent equity,
which isn’t good enough to call. Against this tighter range, I should be
calling with A-Q+ and 9-9+.
When you get short, don’t think you need to get all-in as soon as you get a
decent hand. You are often much better off waiting for a spot where you
can be the first person to go all-in. Calling off your stack against an early-
position raiser is only good if you have a monster.
I called and lost a flip to 7♥-7♣.
 Hand 17
This hand came up in a $2,500 WSOP event. We are playing 250/500-50.
The relevant stacks are:
UTG: 60 BBs, or 30,000 chips. This is me. I have been playing loose in po-
sition and tight out of position.
BB: 30 BBs, or 15,000 chips. This is a younger kid that has been mildly
aggressive but certainly not out of line.
I raise J♣-J♦ from first position. The big blind calls. I imagine his range
is fairly wide, although this is player-dependent, as some people defend
their blinds often and some rarely defend. When someone raises small
from first position and you are in the big blind with a hand that will flop
well, like a small pair or suited connectors, you should basically always
see a flop; your opponent’s range will be fairly tight, meaning he will have
a tough time getting away from his hand post-flop. Despite this, many
players fold in the blinds because they think they are behind in the hand,
which you should know by now is not a good enough reason to fold, espe-
cially with huge implied odds.
The flop comes 8♣-3♠-2♣.

My opponent checks and I bet 1,800 into the 3,300 pot. My opponent has
around 15,000 chips behind. I would prefer a slightly larger bet to induce a
push from my opponent’s weaker holdings. I don’t think he can get away
from most pairs or draws in this spot, so I should try to force him to push
over my continuation bet. To my surprise, he just calls. This makes me
think his range is fairly wide, most likely something like a pair or draw, al-
though if I were in his shoes, I would probably push all of those hands, as
well as my monsters to balance my range. I can discount all the overpairs
that are better than my hand because he probably would re-raise with those
pre-flop, making my hand very strong in this situation.
The turn is the 4♠. He checks and I bet 3,600. The 4♠ doesn’t really
change much unless my opponent had exactly A♣-5♣ or 6♣-5♣. I think
my opponent will still have a tough time getting away from any pair in
this spot, so I need to bet, especially with the numerous draws out. My op-
ponent has around 13,000 behind, so I chose an amount that will basically
force him to go all-in or fold, which is what I want because I almost cer-
tainly have the best hand. He goes all-in and I make the fairly easy call. He
shows 8♠-6♠ for a pair plus flush draw and gutshot. I hold up and win a
nice pot.
 Hand 18
This hand was played in a $1,000 online tournament. We are deep in the
money and down to 27 players. Most of the players have been loose and
aggressive, although I expect some to tighten up a bit as the payout jumps
start to become larger. We are playing 10,000/20,000-2,500. The stacks
are:
Hijack: 70 BBs, or 1,400,000 chips. This is me. I have been playing very
loose and aggressively, trying to steal the blinds whenever possible.
Cutoff: 33 BBs, or 660,000 chips. This player has been raising often when
the action is folded to him, although he hasn’t pushed over any of my
raises yet.
Button: 70 BBs, or 1,400,000 chips. This player has been loose and ag-
gressive, stealing often and re-raising fairly often.
SB: 15 BBs, or 300,000 chips. This player has been tight for the most part.
BB: 43 BBs, or 860,000 chips. This player is new to the table and I have
very little information on him.
The action folds to me in the hijack and I raise to 45,000 with J♥-10♥. If
the short-stacked players to my left had been re-raising all-in fairly often,
I would be a little more cautious raising hands like J♥-10♥. A lot of play-
ers only raise hands they plan on calling with against a short stack’s push,
but this is generally a mistake. You always need some bluffs in your range,
and since J♥-10♥ has some blockers and it flops well if I’m called, rais-
ing is usually fine. Everyone folds to the big blind, who calls. I imagine he
will defend fairly often, as my raise is just over a min-raise. This is fine
with me; my hand flops well and I will be in position throughout the hand.
The flop comes 7♥-3♥-2♥.
My opponent checks. Even though I’ve flopped a monster, I need to bet, as
my opponent could have decent equity in this hand if he has a heart, and
may be unable to fold a hand like 8♥-7♣. Even if I had flopped the nuts
here with something like A♥-J♥, I would still continuation-bet; I am
fairly deep-stacked and I would love to win all of my opponent’s chips. I
bet 72,000, a little more than half of the 120,000 pot, and my opponent
calls, leaving 750,000 behind. He probably has a hand like a pair with a
draw, or maybe as little as a weak pair with no draw. I don’t think he has a
flush or a set, so I am generally in good shape.
The turn is the 2♦. My opponent checks and I bet 160,000 into the 264,000
pot. I want to start threatening my opponent’s stack. I don’t want to let him
draw to a bigger flush for free, and I want him to think I’m trying to force
him off his likely marginal made hand. A small bet here would give him a
great price to outdraw me, which is never good. While I may keep him in
when he is drawing dead with something like 8♣-7♣, I think I am better
off trying to get the maximum from his entire range. If he calls and the
river is a heart, I will check behind. If the river is a non-heart, even if it
pairs the board, I will probably go all-in. Sadly, my opponent folds and I
pick up a small pot.
 Hand 19
This hand is from a $500 live event. Most players have been fairly tight
and aggressive, which is standard at some live events. The stacks are:
UTG: 50 BBs. This is me. I have been fairly aggressive but not out of line.
2nd: 80 BBs. This player is a tight, older gentleman that is a regular on the
tournament circuit.
Button: 60 BBs. This is a young player that seems to respect my raises too
much.
I raise 9♣-8♣ from first position to 2.75 BBs. There are antes in play,
which is why my raise is a touch larger than I would usually make. I like
raising hands like good suited connectors from under the gun in order to
balance my range. I don’t want to raise only monsters from first position
because it will make me easy to play against after the flop. The player in
second position and the big blind both call, giving us a three-way pot.
The flop comes A♦-9♦-9♥. The big blind checks. Even though I have ba-
sically flopped the nuts, I still need to make a standard continuation of
around half-pot. In spots like this, you have to hope one of your opponents
has an ace, which is fairly likely. If I check and try to get fancy, I could
easily lose if a diamond comes, or turn my hand face-up by check-raising
either the flop or turn.

I will continuation-bet in this spot with my entire range, including the

nuts. If you only continuation-bet here with hands like an ace or worse,
your play will become fairly transparent. Against decent competition, you
must mix some monsters into your range. Sadly, both opponents fold and I
win a tiny pot. When you bet in these spots and everyone instantly folds,
don’t be sad because you lost your action. Simply muck your hand, collect
the pot and move on to the next hand.
 Hand 20
This hand is from the same $500 live event as above. We are around 10
places away from the money. The stacks are:
4th: 50 BBs. This player has been opening up his range as we approach the
bubble. So far, no one has played back at him.
Hijack: 20 BBs. This is a young guy that plays well most of the time.
Button: 50 BBs. This is me. I have been generally loose and aggressive.
The player in fourth position raises to 2.2 BBs. He is probably doing this
with a very wide range. The hijack goes all-in for his 20 BBs and I look
down to see A♥-A♦.

I have three options here. I can call, min-re-raise or go all-in. When a

player pushes for around five times the initial raise or more, I tend to call
with most of the hands I plan to play because I want to be able to get away
from weaker hands like A-Q or 9-9 if the initial raiser goes all-in. So, I
will tend to min-re-raise in this spot if the hijack has around 12 BBs or
less, and call if he has more. I will often go all-in with a few hands I don’t
really want to play three-handed, like A-K, Q-Q and J-J. I will tend to call
with A-A, K-K, 10-10, 9-9 and A-Q. I will be pushing with very few hands,
but it doesn’t matter much because I really can’t fold those hands in this
spot and I don’t want to let my opponent see a flop with something like
J♠-10♠. When you call in this spot with A-A, try to act as if you have a
tough decision. Don’t put on an obvious act, but at the same time, don’t
snap-call and celebrate.
I call. The initial raiser thinks for around 30 seconds and goes all-in. I
snap-call. He turns over A♠-K♣, the initial pusher has 5-5 and I end up
with a pile of chips. The player with A-K has a fairly easy fold in this situ-
ation. Given my range to call, the push is something like A-A, K-K, 10-10,
9-9 and A-Q. He needs to just find a fold and move on. When you are on
the bubble and having your way with a table, which he was, there is no
need to risk your stack when two players have both said they are willing to
put all their money on the line. Give up the 2.2 BBs and continue stealing
on the next hand.
 Hand 21
This hand came up in a $200 online tournament and is similar to the previ-
ous situation. The stacks are:
3rd: 10 BBs. This player has been pushing rather often, probably because
he has been short for a while.
Cutoff: 100 BBs. This is me. I have been playing my standard game.
Button: 80 BBs. This is an excellent, loose-aggressive player that has been
around a while.
SB: 100 BBs. This is a solid online regular.
BB: 80 BBs. This player is new to the table and I know nothing about him.
The player in third position goes all-in for his 10 BBs and action is folded
around to me, with 10-10. In spots like this, where you know you will see
at least one hand from your opponent’s range, you should try to determine
the worst hand you can call with. I need around 54-percent equity to break
even because players behind me are yet to act. If I give him a range of any
pair, any Broadway, any suited ace and some suited connectors, I can call
here with something like 8-8+ and A-J+.

I tend to just call when a player has 6 BBs or more and min-re-raise when
he has less than 6 BBs. This is because players seem to have no trouble
calling a 5-BB all-in with a marginal hand after someone in front of them
has called, but they play more straightforwardly when it becomes a little
more expensive. In this spot, since my opponent has 10 BBs, I think a call
is very standard. When I call with 10-10, I fully plan on folding to a re-
raise from any of the large stacks behind me. In this hand, the big blind
goes all-in. Since I know nothing about him, I assume he has a range like
J-J+, A-Qs+ and A-K. Against this range, 10-10 only has 35-percent
equity, giving me an easy fold. In spots like this, if the big blind turns over
anything besides one of these hands, take a note and don’t fold if the situ-
ation comes up again. I make an easy fold and the big blind beats the ini-
tial pusher’s 8♦-7♦ with Q♠-Q♣. Notice that I would have lost an extra 9
BBs if I had re-raised the initial raise to 19 BBs. Saving 9 BBs, even when
you’ve lost 10 BBs to the pot, is always a huge victory.
 Hand 22
This hand took place in a $500 online tournament. The stacks are:
SB: 80 BBs. This is a good regular that isn’t scared to make moves.
BB: 47 BBs. This is me. I have been playing a fairly tight and aggressive
game, as the rest of the table is very tough.
The small blind raises to 3 BBs. I find J-J in the big blind. He could be
raising with a fairly wide range, especially if he views me as a tighter
player. If this is the case, calling is probably the best option, as he will
likely fold to my re-raise. If he knows who I am and that I like to play pots
from the big blind against the small blind, both by calling and re-raising,
then I like re-raising.

J-J is going to be in a tough spot post-flop quite often, so I am perfectly

happy getting all-in pre-flop. I re-raise to 7.5 BBs. I don’t re-raise to 9
BBs in this spot; this would make it tough to have bluffs in my range be-
cause I would be close to committing myself with strong, but not great
hands. If I re-raise to 7.5 BBs, which is 2.5 times my opponent’s raise, I
have plenty of room to fold if I get pushed on.
My opponent instantly goes all-in and I snap-call. He turns over 8♠-6♠
and I win a nice pot. I firmly believe if I made it 9 BBs pre-flop instead of
7.5 BBs, he may have realized he had no fold equity and simply folded. In-
stead, I got him to give away 47 BBs with a weak holding.
 Hand 23
This hand took place in a $300 live tournament. The stacks are fairly shal-
low, which is often the case in small buy-in live events. The players have
generally been weak, limping often. The stacks are:
UTG: 15 BBs. This player has been limping from time to time and rarely
raises pre-flop.
2nd: 30 BBs. This is an older player that likes to see cheap flops.
4th: 22 BBs. This is me.
Cutoff: 30 BBs. This is a weaker live player that frequents the tournament
circuit.
The players under the gun and in second position limp. I expect their
ranges to generally be fairly weak, although the player under the gun may
be trying to trap with a monster. Action folds to me and I take a peek at
K♦-K♥. I raise to 2.75 BBs. This is obviously much smaller than the raise
size I suggest in Volume 1, but when you are playing against overly weak
opposition, you can drastically vary your raise size to try to induce action.
In a high-stakes tournament, in a similar situation against good players,
who probably wouldn’t have limped under the gun in the first place, I
would have made it something like 4.5 BBs. The cutoff calls. I think he
has something like A-J or 7-7 and doesn’t know what to do with it. His
best play with these hands is to either go all-in or fold.
Action folds back to the initial under-the-gun limper, who goes all-in.
Some players will only do this with a monster and some will do it with
hands they think are monsters, like 6-6 and A-J. In this spot, I wouldn’t
fold K-K to anyone because it would be a huge error if someone were
bluffing or overvaluing something like J-J. I would probably fold 10-10,
which may seem super tight, but 10-10 is in bad shape even if a player is
overplaying something like J-J or A-J. I call, the cold caller folds and my
K-K loses to the limp-pusher’s A-Q. I think the under-the-gun player is
much better off raising or pushing A-Q than going for the limp and re-
raise, as most players will only call off when they are either flipping or
ahead of A-Q. If he simply raises or pushes, he may be able to get it in
when he has his opponent dominated.
 Hand 24
This hand is from a $100 online event. The blinds are 10/20. The stacks
are:
4th: 150 BBs, or 3,000 chips. This is a well-respected online pro with de-
cent live results.
Hijack: 150 BBs, or 3,000 chips. This is me.
BB: 100 BBs, or 2,000 chips. I know nothing about the big blind except
that he has already fired out a two-barrel bluff and been caught.
Action folds to player 4, who raises to 3 BBs. I call with A♣-J♦. This
hand flops decently well. I don’t want to re-raise before the flop because if
I’m re-raised or even called, I will have no clue where I stand in the hand,
especially if an ace or jack flops. Some players will incorrectly assume I
can’t have a decent ace in my range when I call, so that adds a bit of de-
ception to my range, which is always good. The big blind also calls, which
I imagine he will do with a fairly wide range.
The flop comes 7♠-4♦-2♦.

Both players check to me. I could bet or check here. Any time the initial
raiser checks and you are in last position in a three-way pot, feel free to
take a stab with a wide range because you can be confident that the pre-
flop raiser missed the flop. This means you only have to worry about the
player in the blind. This time I check, which I’m not a fan of, looking
back. Even if I’m currently ahead in the hand, I will be forced to give up
on most turns if someone bets, and I also have to worry about basically
every turn card.
The turn is the 5♦, and they check to me again. The 5♦ is a wonderful card
for me because now, in addition to my possible best hand, I have a weak
diamond draw, which would give me a few more outs or induce one of my
opponents to call with something like K♦-10♣. Any time you have a hand
with showdown value plus a draw, it’s likely that one or the other will
come through for you. I bet 120 into the 190-chip pot and take it down.
 Hand 25
This hand took place in a $1,500 live tournament. The field is generally
soft and passive. We are playing 150/300. The stacks are:
3rd: 150 BBs, or 45,000. This is me. I have been the most aggressive
player at the table by far.
Cutoff: 100 BBs, or 30,000. This player has been willing to see flops with
junky hands but seems to play standard post-flop.
I raise A♠-Q♥ to 900 from middle position and the cutoff calls. He could
have a fairly wide range, as he likes to see flops with all sorts of hands,
ranging from pairs to suited gappers to Ax, and the occasional random
hand like 9♠-5♣. Everyone else folds.
The flop comes 7♣-2♠-2♣. This is a spot where I would prefer to check
my middle-strength hands, like A-Q or 6-6, but in order to balance my
continuation-betting range, I need to throw out a bet. If I only checked my
medium-strength hands, most opponents would quickly figure out what I
was doing, fire a few barrels and force me off my hand. So, I make a
standard continuation bet of 1,500 into the 2,250 pot. My opponent calls,
which probably means he has something like a 7, a flush draw, a 2 or a ran-
dom float with overcards.

The turn is the J♥. I could certainly continue with a bluff here, but I elect
to check. My opponent checks behind. If he had bet the turn, I would have
had a fairly easy fold against most non-aggressive players. If I knew him
to be a habitual floater that bet the turn whenever checked to, I couldn’t
justify a check-fold. Against generally passive opponents, I think it is ac-
ceptable. When he checks behind, I expect him to show up with something
he didn’t want to get check-raise-bluffed off of, like a 7, a small to me-
dium pair or a flush draw.
The river is the 6♦. I check again. Betting doesn’t make sense because I
will often be beat when called and will rarely be called by worse. My op-
ponent now bets 2,700 into the 5,250 pot. I should call if my opponent will
only bet the nuts or nothing, as I beat most missed draws. If he had some-
thing like 6♣-5♣, he would probably check back the river, so on average,
I think this will be a call because by betting, he is representing a slow-
played 2 or maybe some weird 7, which I think a lot of passive players
would just check back on the river. If he is capable of betting hands like a
7, 6♣-5♣ or even something like 3-3, then I have an easy fold, because
even though he is betting with fairly weak hands, I can’t beat most of
them. Always consider a check-raise bluff on the river if your opponent
will bet a wide range but only call off with a monster. This time I called
and lost to A♦-2♥.
Since my opponent showed up with basically the nuts, I didn’t learn much
about his river betting range. Losing is not a good enough reason to say
my call was bad. For example, if my opponent would bet the river with
only a missed flush draw or a 2, my call was almost certainly correct, even
if I was wrong this time. Don’t beat yourself up when you make a call that
turns out to be wrong. You will make money in the long run if you are ac-
curately thinking about your opponent’s range.
 Hand 26
This hand took place in a $200 online tournament. The blinds are 15/30.
The stacks are:
Hijack: 100 BBs, or 3,000 chips. This is a solid online player with a decent
amount of live experience.
Button: 100 BBs, or 3,000 chips. This is me.
The hijack raises to 90 and I call with 7♥-5♥. I can re-raise, call or fold
with this hand. I think all three plays have fairly similar equity, although
early in a tournament, I like seeing a few flops. Everyone else folds.
The flop comes A♠-Q♥-2♦. My opponent checks. I expect him to show
up with a bad ace, a queen or a medium pair. Against that range, I don’t
mind a bet if I follow through with the bluff on the turn and river. Check-
ing is also fine, but I shouldn’t just check down if my opponent continues
to show weakness.

The turn is the 4♥, an awesome card for me. My opponent checks again. It
would be criminal for me to do the same. If my opponent calls, I can be
pretty confident he has a medium-strength hand like a queen or middle
pair, and I will be able to barrel him off when the river isn’t an ace or
queen. On an ace or queen river, his likely marginal hand will gain some
strength and be able to easily call down because I will be less likely to
have an ace or queen. I would obviously bet for value if I hit my gutshot or
flush on the river, which would nicely balance my river bluffs. I bet 150
into the 225 pot and he calls.
The river is an ugly A♦. My opponent checks and I check behind, losing to
K♠-Q♦. While I am unsure if he would have folded that hand, I would
still love a bet when the river was not an ace or queen. It is important to
have a plan for each future street when you bet. If you have a plan, it is
tough to get totally lost in a hand.
 Hand 27
This hand is from a $200 online tournament. We are around five hands into
the event and I have no reads on anyone. We are playing 10/20 and every-
one has 3,000 chips.
The player in third position raises to 60 and I call on the hijack with
5♣-5♥. I see no other option in this situation. Always be willing to take a
flop with a small pair when you are deep-stacked and have position. Re-
raising has a little merit, but not much. The big blind also calls.
The flop is 8♦-5♠-4♦.

Both players check to me, which is never what I want to see when I have a
set. With a board this draw-heavy, betting is mandatory. I make a standard
bet of 140 into a 190 pot. The big blind calls; he probably has a draw or a
marginal made hand like 8-7 or 6-5. The initial raiser folds.
The turn is the A♥, which is not good. While this card certainly doesn’t
hurt my hand, it hurts a lot of my opponent’s hands, which will probably
cost me action. He checks. I have to bet again to protect against draws. He
will probably fold all weak made hands, which is not good, but I can’t give
him a free card because a good part of his range isn’t drawing dead. Since
I think he will fold most weak made hands to any bet, I think I should bet
fairly large. I bet 420 into the 470 pot. Notice that if I bet something like
250, he will be getting 3-to-1, which probably isn’t too far from the odds
he needs to correctly call. You always want to make your opponent make a
mistake. He calls.
The river is the J♣, another total brick. Now I think my opponent either
has a busted draw, which he will fold to any bet, or a strong made hand,
like A-8, A-5, A-4, 8-5 or 5-4. I think he will call any reasonable bet with
these hands because my hand either looks like a strong made hand, which
is tough to have, or a busted draw. I bet 1,020 into the 1,310 pot and my
opponent snap-calls with K♦-5♦.
I have no clue what my opponent was thinking here, as he doesn’t beat any
made hand and only beats a few busted draws. Sometimes players make
big calls in really bad spots. Since my opponent has two diamonds in his
hand, it is much less likely that I had a flush draw. If I did have a flush
draw, it would probably have an ace or jack, although I probably wouldn’t
bet a jack on the river. All in all, his call is pretty weak. Never berate
someone who makes a bad call, whether he was right or wrong. The last
thing you want is for your opponents to stop calling three barrels with
middle pair.
 Hand 28
This hand is from a $10,000 WPT event. We are fairly early in day one.
The blinds are 100/200. The stacks are:
2nd: 150 BBs, or 30,000 chips. This is a mediocre live player that seems to
play fairly straightforwardly.
Cutoff: 150 BBs, or 30,000 chips. This is me. I haven’t been caught doing
anything out of line at all so far.
The player in second position raises to 600 and I call with K♠-J♠ from the
cutoff. Re-raising is never good here; folding, at least this deep-stacked,
usually isn’t a great option. Be careful not to lose a ton of money with
hands like A-10s and K-Js if you flop top pair and your opponent fires
multiple streets. Top pair with a decent kicker is not the nuts when a lot of
money goes in the pot.
The flop comes Q♠-Q♦-9♦.

My opponent bets 800, which could mean anything, and I float. I have a
gutshot, a backdoor flush draw, an overcard and position. I couldn’t ask for
much more. Unless my opponent has a 9 or better, or a draw, he will al-
most certainly check-fold the turn.
The turn is the 5♥. My opponent checks, which I fully expected, and I fire
1,800 into the 3,100 pot. He instantly raises to 5,000. This is one of those
spots where my play was great but my opponent simply has a hand. If I
had turned a 10 and my opponent check-raised, I would have reluctantly
called down. I would fold to the check-raise on any other turn because, un-
less my opponent was crazy, which certainly wasn’t the case here, he had
at least a queen. I think for a while and fold. My opponent is nice enough
to show 9-9.
If he had just called the turn, I would have considered firing the river. He
basically turned his hand face up by check-raising the turn. If he had
simply continued betting or check-called the turn, he would have gotten a
lot of value from all my made hands. Instead he won just one small bet
from me, which I am happy about. One thing I like to do in these spots is
to mildly act as if I have a tough decision. When I fold, I generally say
something like “nice bluff.” This will often induce my opponent to show
his hand, which is free information. Someone who check-raises the turn
usually has a supreme hand.
 Hand 29
This hand was played in a $3,500 WPT event.
It is early in day one and not much has happened so far. We are playing
100/200. The three players in this pot all have 150 BBs, or 30,000 chips.
The hijack is an older player that I have seen around. I am in the small
blind. The big blind is a young kid I have not seen before.
Everyone folds to the hijack, who makes it 600. He probably has a fairly
standard raising range for an older player from late position, something
like pairs, suited aces, Broadways and some suited connectors. I call with
5♠-5♥ from the small blind and the big blind calls as well.
The flop comes Q♣-3♣-2♠. I check, as does the big blind. The initial
raiser bets 1,200 into the 1,800 pot. This is a fairly easy fold.

There are a few problems with calling. Either the big blind or the hijack
could have me beat and I will be drawing thin, the hijack could be bluffing
with something that has a lot of equity against my hand, like 9♣-8♠, or
the big blind could be going for a check-raise with a draw, forcing me off
my equity. I could check-raise the flop as a bluff, but I don’t like bluffing
off a pile of chips right at the start of a tournament in a marginal spot. So,
if I check, it needs to be a check-fold.
But checking isn’t my only option. I could lead for around 1,200, hoping
my opponents fold all their air, which wouldn’t be too terrible. I could also
expect them to play fairly straightforwardly; the big blind has to worry
about the initial raiser, and the initial raiser will probably miss this flop
and play face-up. If you’ve read this entire book, you know I don’t like
donk bets because they are difficult to balance, and this is no exception. I
would love to be able to check-raise my strong draws and sets and get ac-
tion, which means I don’t really want to lead with them. That means most
of my donk-betting range, if I had one, would be marginal made hands and
weak draws, all of which I would have to give up with on the turn. Consid-
ering all this, I think check-folding is the right play against decent com-
petition.
 Hand 30
This hand came up a little later in the same $3,500 WPT event. We are still
playing 100/200. The stacks are:
Button: 100 BBs, or 20,000 chips. This player lost a fairly large pot earlier
when he made middle pair and couldn’t fold it.
SB: 150 BBs, or 30,000 chips. This is me. I haven’t done too much so far.
BB: 150 BBs, or 30,000 chips. This player arrived late, so I have no reads
on him except that he is older.
Everyone folds to the button, who limps. I have Q♠-9♦ in the small blind.
I could raise or fold in this spot, but since the limper tends to trap himself
post-flop, I think I should limp in and try to flop something like a pair be-
fore piling money into the pot. I limp and the big blind checks.
The flop comes Q♣-8♠-4♠.

I could check or bet. I generally like betting in a limped pot. No one rep-
resented a strong hand pre-flop, so everyone will check through on the flop
a decent amount of time, which isn’t good for my weak top pair. I bet 400
into the 600 pot. The big blind folds and the button calls. I expect him to
show up with an 8, 4, middle pair or draw. I think he would often raise the
flop with a queen or better, so I think I have the best hand.
The turn is the 2♥, which is great for me. I bet 1,000 for pure value into
the 1,400 pot and my opponent instantly calls. I don’t really think the turn
changed his range at all. He either has a worse made hand or a draw.
The river is the 2♦, which is also great for me. If I bet in this spot, I cer-
tainly think my opponent would call with all made hands and fold all bus-
ted draws. If I check, I am unsure if he would bet or check his made hands,
but I know he would at least consider betting his busted draws. This is a
close decision, and I decide to check. If I were to bet, it would be on the
larger side because my opponent would call any reasonable bet with any
pair.
My opponent quickly bets 3,000 into the 3,400 pot and my chips almost
beat his into the pot. I have an easy call because I think all his made hands
are worse than mine and all his draws were missed. In fact, I almost have
the nuts. I don’t think going for a check-raise on the river makes much
sense because he would probably find a fold with all his junky made
hands, which means he will only call if he has beat or I barely have him
outkicked, which is tough to do with a 9 kicker. My opponent mucks his
hand, which means he had a busted draw with no showdown value, and I
win a nice pot.
 Chapter 10

Questions and Answers

I have been teaching people to crush poker for years. I have made a point
to copy quite a few of their frequently asked questions, as I thought they
could be useful sometime in the future. Since you should have a broad
knowledge of poker by this point, try to answer the questions before read-
ing my answer. If you get any wrong, try to figure out why. If you have no
clue, figure out why you have no clue and correct it. Poker is a game about
finding the answers for yourself. The questions will cover various topics,
both on and off the felt. Most of them will be fairly basic but should at
least give you a glimpse into the mind of a beginning player. I hope you
can learn a little something from these questions.
Q. I have seen this play a couple times when playing live tournaments. A
big stack in early position grabs a handful of chips and splashes them into
the pot. He does not take time to count out the chips. He simply grabs a
pile and throws them in. What does this mean?
A. When a situation like this comes up, it is usually best to let someone
else find out the answer for you. Pay attention to what happens when
someone calls and go from there. Also, try to induce him to show his hand
by saying something like “Nice bluff” or “Keep making that play; it will
get you broke.” Basically, you are trying to get free information so you can
snap him off when he makes the play again. In general, I would assume
this is a play with a marginal made hand like top pair, weak kicker and he
is saying, “Call if you have me beat.” Clearly, this is a terrible play, and
players that use it probably aren’t that great. Really though, it is very
player-dependent.
Q. I was wondering what you think about the future of poker. Many people
think the games will become tougher and unprofitable. Do you think this
will happen? Is poker a good investment for my future?
A. If online poker becomes legal in America, poker will boom again. If it
doesn’t, it will likely stay where it is or slowly decline. Even if poker does
get tougher, you can still make a pile of money as long as you work hard
and stay ahead of the curve. But I find it hard to believe that the U.S. gov-
ernment will not legalize poker in some way in the near future. By regulat-
ing it, they stand to make a ton of money. I fully expect online poker to be
totally legal over the next few years, making the games very good. Hope-
fully, the government won’t significantly increase the rake.
Q. Do you think being coached by you will make me a winning player?
A. While I can’t guarantee being coached by me will make you a poker su-
perstar, if you listen to what I say and apply the changes I suggest to your
game, I am confident I could make the vast majority of people profitable
at poker. That doesn’t mean you will be bringing in $10,000 per month, but
if you play with players that are worse than you and are patient, there is no
reason most people should be unprofitable at the lower-stakes games, eas-
ily bringing in a few thousand dollars per month.
Q. Do you think using a heads-up display (HUD) is necessary to beat on-
line poker?
A. I used to never use a HUD. Over the last year or so, I have started pay-
ing more attention to stats and my results have slightly improved. I re-
cently cashed for $317,000 in a $1,000 buy-in online tournament and it is
tough to say if using a HUD helped me or not. I would venture to say it
did. A HUD’s value is tough to quantify. That being said, as long as you
don’t totally rely on it and use it mostly to slightly sway you one way or
the other in tricky spots, I think HUDs are a great thing.
Q. What is the best way to switch from mainly playing sitngos to playing
cash games?
A. When moving from one form of poker to another, I suggest you move
down quite a few levels and put in a lot of hours learning the game before
moving up. I also suggest you watch training videos pertaining to the
game you are trying to learn. You should also find a book to read about the
game, as well as a study group to discuss ideas with. Take it slow and put
in a lot of hours at the table before playing for stakes that really matter to
you.
Q. What type of win percentage can you expect at poker?
A. This depends entirely on your skill level, your opponents’ skill level
and the possible edge in the game you are playing. In general, winning at
around 10-percent ROI in sitngos, 5 big blinds per 100 hands in cash
games, 70-percent ROI in online multi-table tournaments or 150-percent
ROI in live tournaments is considered very good.
Q. What games should a decent player grind on a daily basis?
A. It depends on your life and how much time you can devote to poker.
Cash games are generally good for most players, as you can get in and out
fairly quickly. The same goes for nine-handed sitngos. I only suggest
multi-table tournaments if you are fairly free and don’t have too many
commitments, as they take a lot of time.
Q. You have stated that a big leak most players have is to bet small when
they make a very strong hand. What is the best way to get value out of
those? It seems like if you bet big, players will just fold. Should I check,
giving them a free card? Should I check-call or check-raise?
A. Play your total bluffs and strong hands similarly. If you put your oppon-
ent on a weak range, you should generally bet smaller with your entire
range unless you think a big bet will always get folds, assuming that is
what you want. In general though, you want to bet a large amount when
you have a strong hand because that is how you build a big pot. You will
be pleasantly surprised that most players will pay you off with something
like top pair or better. Simply bet around 5/6 pot and hope to get paid. If
they fold to these bets often, start mixing in bluffs until they catch on, and
then go back to betting the nuts that way.
Q. You mention in one of your videos that once you know you are a winning
player, you don’t need to worry quite so much about your bankroll. What is
a good sample size to actually know if I am a winning player?
A. For cash games, I would say 200,000 hands is generally a large enough
sample size to know if you are a winning player. For sitngos and multi-
table tournaments, 3,000 games is enough. However, you should see your
win rate increasing as you play more games, as you should be more skill-
ful. If the opposite is true, figure out why. I say your bankroll matters a
little less because I suggest you take shots at great games here and there. If
you know you can drop back down and grind up more money if necessary,
there is nothing wrong with taking shots occasionally. Make sure you stay
disciplined.
Q. Would you play $1/2 no-limit in a casino the same as you would play
$.05/.10 online?
A. I would play a little tighter in the live game, although the games are
probably comparable. I also wouldn’t re-raise with weaker hands pre-flop
live, as I would online, as most of your value in low-stakes live games will
come from making the nuts and getting paid off, whereas some of your
value online will come from pushing your opponents off the best hand.
Q. Is it smarter to play 20 tables at once online to try to grind out money
or fewer tables to try to learn to play better?
A. This depends on your financial situation. If you need money, play a lot
of tables and grind out a profit. When you do this, you have to realize you
will not learn to play better, which will make it tougher for you to move
up in the long run. So, you are gaining a small amount of money now and
forfeiting the chance to gain a lot more later. I suggest you learn to play
well and move up that way.
Q. What is the best thing to do when you are losing over and over again
and simply never get good cards?
A. When you are losing, assuming losing bothers you, which it shouldn’t,
spend some time away from the table and study the game. Watch poker
videos, post hands in forums and read books. Get outside and enjoy life.
Losing at poker should not dominate your emotions. Losing is part of the
game. Get used to it.
Q. Do you have any advice on double-or-nothing sitngos, where half the
field double their money and the other half get nothing?
A. Play tight and don’t call pushes on the bubble unless you have a mon-
ster.
Q. I have a hard time making it to the top few places in large, multi-table
tournaments. It seems like I always finish between 27th and 9th place.
What am I doing wrong?
A. You are probably playing too tight. You have to be aggressive late in
tournaments in order to withstand the constantly increasing blinds. If you
play tight, waiting for premium hands, you will only win pots that belong
to you. You have to steal a lot in order to make it. I hope the strategy I out-
lined in Volume 1 helps with that.
Q. I like to watch a lot of poker shows on TV. I get the impression from
your videos that a lot of the TV pros play poorly. Is this true?
A. Most of the pros on TV play far from optimally, as they are TV person-
alities, not poker players. Sure, they probably won at poker ten years ago,
but that doesn’t really mean anything if they haven’t won anything since
then. Watch the young, well-known, online players that get on TV. They
usually play technically sound poker that will crush most opponents.
Q. When someone check-raises, do they usually have the nuts?
A. They generally have one of three ranges. They tend to have a well-bal-
anced range of strong hands and bluffs, a range made up of top pair or bet-
ter, or a range made up of strong hands, like two pair or better. Folding is
probably the best option against all these ranges, unless you have a strong
hand or a good draw. Don’t let them know you constantly fold to check-
raises though, or you will become exploitable.
Q. I recently came into $2,000. I would like to get a nice two-monitor
setup, which I can get for $1,000. I currently play on an old computer, but
it still works. I would also like to pad my bankroll with a $500 reload bo-
nus online and purchase some poker videos. How do you suggest I divide
my money?
A. I suggest you spend a little on poker videos and put the rest in your
bankroll. If you can double your bankroll every few months, spending
$1,000 will force you to work a few extra months. Say you have $1,000
and can turn it into $5,000 within the year. You could also start with
$2,000 and turn it into $9,000 within the year but you have to play on an
old computer. Is it worth $5,000 to play on a bad computer for a year? I
think it is. You could then spend $1,000 out of your $9,000, which isn’t
nearly as significant as spending $1,000 out of $2,000. Basically, the big-
ger you can make your bankroll, the quicker you can move up.
Q. Which sites online are best for building your bankroll?
A. I suggest you play where there are very few regular players. This usu-
ally means selecting good tables on the main sites where there are very
few regulars or at smaller sites where you are playing with a few random
guys. The same goes for live poker. Play where the random guys play. You
don’t want to play with people that are competent and play every day. That
will cost you money.
Q. I have found by watching your videos that I re-raise way too often with
small pairs. What is a good re-raising range?
A. Your re-raising range should depend entirely on your opponent. Against
a strong player, you should be re-raising a range made up of strong hands
as well as hands that are too weak to call. If your opponent is a calling sta-
tion, you should re-raise strong hands and decent hands, like A-J or K-Q.
Figure out your opponent’s range and playing style and go from there.
Q. Recently on the first hand at the final table of a $3, 18-person sitngo, I
went all-in with K-K for 20 BBs and everyone folded. Should I have raised
small instead?
A. It depends on everyone’s stack size. If everyone has less than 10 BBs,
which will be the case in a lot of sitngos, feel free to go all-in. If you and
most other players have more than 15 BBs, you should tend to raise to
around 2.2 BBs.
Q. What are typical weaknesses of players $1/2 no-limit players at local
dog tracks? I notice a lot of players love to limp and see flops. What
should I do about this? Also, how should I play the drawing hand, A-K?
A. Most of the players in $1/2 games at local dog tracks love to see flops
and generally overvalue hands like top pair. You will also see some people
sitting with 20 BBs and others with 500 BBs, causing you to play a signi-
ficantly different strategy against each opponent. If you have a strong
hand, you generally don’t want the limpers to fold, assuming there are a
lot of them. You would much rather they call with incorrect odds. Also, A-
K isn’t a drawing hand; 9♠-6♠ is a drawing hand. If you are in the small
blind with A-K and eight people limp in front of you, make it $28 or so,
assuming you have $200 in front of you. As you get shorter, you should
raise a bit more so you can push any flop.
Q. I currently do not get rakeback. What am I missing out on?
A. Rakeback is a program by which the online sites give an affiliate some
percentage of your rake in exchange for their signing you up to play on
their site. Normally this is between 30 and 40 percent of the rake you pay.
Since most smart poker players know this, the affiliates have come to an
agreement with the players such that if the affiliate gets 40 percent, they
give 35 percent back to the player, making both parties a decent amount of
money. When I played sitngos online when I was 18 years old, I would
regularly make $10,000 per month from rakeback and around $10,000 per
month from actually playing. Rakeback doubled my income. Playing
without rakeback is like shooting yourself in the foot and trying to ride a
bicycle.
Q. How do you find your niche in poker?
A. Stick to one form of poker when learning. Once your bankroll is huge,
you can venture into other areas of the game. I started playing sitngos and
played them nonstop for around four years before switching to multi-table
tournaments. Whatever form of the game you decide on, learn to be the
best and grind it hard until you have a large bankroll.
Q. I am confused about equity. You say, “I am 33-percent to win so I need
2-to-1 pot odds to call,” but my brain tells me this should be 3-to-1. How
do you figure out equity when you are playing?
A. Odds of 3-to-1 mean you need to win one in four times, or 25 percent of
the time. You simply add the two numbers together (1+3) then put them in
the denominator and have a 1 as the numerator, so 3-to-1 is 1/4, or 25 per-
cent. So, 33 percent of the time would be 2-to-1, or 1/3.
Q. I have witnessed things online to make me think the game is rigged. Am
I correct?
A. No. You are much more likely to be cheated at live poker than online.
That being said, I only think I have been cheated at live poker three times
in my career, and I was at fault each time, as I was playing in random
home games instead of at casinos. Online poker is simply not rigged.
Q. I want to start discussing hands so I can become better at poker. Where
would you suggest?
A. I post and talk about hands constantly with people on the www.Float-
TheTurn.com forums. Check it out.
Q. I have a leak where I raise a big pair like J-J, get called and see a flop
with three undercards. There is a lot of betting and raising and it seems
like I am always beat by either a set or a bigger pair. What am I doing
wrong?
A. It sounds to me like you are getting a lot of money in with hands like
weak overpairs, whereas these hands are basically bluff catchers once a lot
of money goes in the pot. Consider checking back the flop or just calling
continuation bets. Suppose someone raises and you decide to call with K-
K for deception. The flop comes Q-6-2. Assuming you are both deep-
stacked, if your opponent bets, you should be happy to just call down.
Raising the flop basically turns your hand face up, saying you have some-
thing like K-Q or better, allowing your opponent to continue only with
hands like A-Q or better, which puts K-K in pretty terrible shape.
Q. When everyone folds to me in the small blind and I have around 8 BBs,
which hands should I be raising, calling and folding?
A. You should be going all-in with every hand with an 8-BB stack, assum-
ing the big blind isn’t going to call really wide, and most won’t. If he is
going to call you fairly wide, you can fold hands like 3-2, 7-2, 8-3, etc.,
but you should still be going all-in with around 90 percent of hands. You
will bust out quite often doing this, but once you get short, you simply
can’t blind off, which leaves you with zero equity. When you gamble, you
always have some equity. Don’t turn something into nothing by being
scared.
 Conclusion

Throughout this book, I have strived to explain everything I know about

being a professional tournament poker player. I am confident that if you
put in many hours of study and constantly make smart decisions, you can
make it in this competitive world. If you keep your head up when things
go poorly and don’t go crazy when things go great, you will succeed.
Strive to play in games where you have an edge, constantly practice put-
ting players on ranges, and seek to learn everything you can from players
that are better than you. Most importantly, make sure you enjoy life. None
of this is worth anything if you spend your life hunched over a poker table.
Despite the many pitfalls in the poker world, a few people have figured out
how to make everything work. Realize though, that you must never stop
learning. If you become stagnant, you are almost guaranteed to fail. I hope
someone has read this book and is well on the way to becoming the next
poker superstar. Make sure you say “Hi” when you see me on the felt. I
plan on being there as well. Good luck.
 Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1 Stages of a Tournament
Early Levels
Middle Levels
The Bubble
In The Money
The Final-Table Bubble
The Final Table
2 Short-Handed Play
Six- to Four-Handed Play
Three-Handed Play
Heads Up Play
Heads Up Pre-Flop Play
Heads Up Post-Flop Play
Heads Up Short-Stack Play
3 Developing Your Poker Skills
Learning
Be Open Minded but Skeptical
Apply What You Learn
Have a Clear Mind
Find a Study Group
Learn to Think for Yourself
Coming Up with New Lines
4 The Mental and Physical Approach
Opportunity Cost
Game Selection
Patience
Take Your Time
Dealing with Loss
Tilt
 Playing Against Someone on Tilt
Put in Hours but Take Breaks
Intuition
Luck
Physical
Sleeping
Be in Good Shape
Endurance
Breathing
Good Posture
Nutrition
5 Tells
General Tells
Initial Reads
Having No Tells
Do Not Give Away Free Information
The Hand isn’t Over Until it’s Over
Take Useful Notes
Raise the Same Amount Every Time
Bet-Sizing Tells
Timing Tells
Busy Tells
Chip Placement
Chip Tricks
Poker Gear Tells
Tells Based on Who You Associate With
Giving Off Reverse Tells
Hollywooding
Looking Back At Your Hand
World-Class Players
Hand Reading
6 Practical Tips for Tournament Play
Protect your Hand
When to Look at your Hand
When You Think a Card Flashes
Look Left
Checking in the Dark
 Betting Weird Amounts
Do Not Worry About the Average Stack
When Your Bluff is Called
When the Big Blind is Sitting Out
Chopping
Pot-Limit Holdem
Do Not Slow Down the Game
Show Up on Time
Confirm the Action if You Miss It
Carry a Bag
How to Stack Your Chips
Making Change
Do Not Put Chips in Your Pocket
Sunglasses
Headphones
Treat People Well
Do Not Berate Poor Play
Do Not Fear the Pros
Table Talk
Do Not Talk Strategy at the Table
7 Etiquette
Do Not Talk to the Person you Just Beat
Excessive Celebration
Know What You are Talking About
Rapping the Table
Telling the All-In Player “Good Luck”
Talking During the Hand
Do Not Reveal Your Cards
Make Chips Easy for the Dealer to See
8 Going Pro
Do Not Overestimate Yourself
Do Not Try to be Macho
Do Not Set Silly Goals
Do Not Pity Yourself
Be a Good Person
Leaks
Poker is a Numbers Game
 Have a Large Skill Set
Know the Game You are Playing
Play a Game with a Future
Play in Soft Games
The Long Run
Bankroll
Downswings
The Rake
Hourly Rate
Spots You Should Not Pass Up
Other Sources of Income
Have a Retirement Fund
Coaching
Do Not Loan Money
Find Ways to Solve Problems
Differences Between Live and Online Poker
Online Tournaments
How to Multi-Table
It Takes a Year to Adjust to Live Poker
Know How to Play Short-handed
Soft Large-Buy-In Tournaments
World Series of Poker
World Poker Tour
Traveling the Circuit
9 Hand Examples
10 Questions and Answers
Conclusion