What I Know About Poker: Lessons in Texas Hold'em, Omaha, and Other Poker Games

By Alex Scott

Poker is not a ‘get rich quick’ scheme. Becoming a consistent winner takes effort and dedication. In this collection of classic articles and much new material, prolific poker strategy writer Alex Scott explains:

- How to use Expected Value, Pot Odds, Position, and the principle of Tight-Aggressive play to make good decisions

- How to transform your No Limit Hold’em game in five simple steps

- How to play Five Card Draw, Lowball Draw, Triple Draw, Badugi, Five Card Stud, Seven Card Stud, Razz, Stud Eight or Better, Chicago, Super Stud, Omaha, Omaha Eight or Better, 5 and 6-Card Omaha, Double Flop Hold’em and Omaha, Courchevel, and Chinese Poker – including basic strategy guides and dealing tips for each variant

- How to play when the river is dealt

- What to do when you play your first live tournament

- When to pass up close gambles in tournaments

- How to avoid common bet-sizing mistakes

- How to use Fold Equity

- How to make money playing Short-Stack Strategy (and how to defend against shortstacking opponents)

- How to turn a small investment into big money playing Steps Sit & Gos

- When to bet into a dry side pot

- How to play when your opponents straddle

- How to utilise the ‘squeeze play’

- How to avoid results-oriented thinking

- How to keep good records

- How to use tells and your opponents’ mannerisms when playing live poker

- How the Tight-Aggressive and Loose-Aggressive styles evolved

- How to use M and the Independent Chip Model (ICM) to make better decisions in Sit & Go tournaments

- How to avoid common ‘robotic’ and predictable plays

- How to play when you are card dead

- How to defeat online opponents who are using HUDs

- How to use the metagame to your advantage

- Why Nietzsche was Right about Poker

- How Superstition hurts your game, and how you can best use intuition

The book includes 13 quizzes to test your knowledge of the material covered.

One of the most comprehensive poker guides available, ‘What I Know About Poker’ is a must-have for any player’s library.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Alex Scott
• Release date: Sep 21, 2010
• ISBN: 9780956715104

Alex Scott

Alex Scott is a graduate of the University of Tennessee. He currently lives in Chattanooga.

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A Poker Primer

This book assumes that you know the basic rules of Hold’em – that is, how to bet, raise and fold. Beyond those basic rules, there are certain fundamental concepts that apply to all varieties of poker – the foundations on which you can build more complex strategies and ideas. This chapter will introduce you to a few of those concepts, so that you can understand the rest of the book. Don’t worry if the maths seems a little confusing – winning at poker requires only very basic mathematical skills. In poker, general concepts are more important than a fine appreciation of maths.

Expected Value

Winning at poker is akin to making business investments. The most successful investors make lots of investments, some of which succeed and some of which fail. While these business moguls do not expect to make a profit on every single investment, they do expect to make more money from successful investments in the long term than they lose from unsuccessful ones.

Expected Value, or EV, is a theoretical term that describes the average profit or loss of a particular decision if it were possible to repeat the same decision a very large number of times. EV is key to understanding gambling problems.

The general formula for EV is as follows:

(p1 * e) + (p2 * e) …

Where px is the probability of each condition occurring, and e is the profit or loss from each condition.

Consider flipping a coin for $1 per flip. Every time the coin lands on heads, you win $1. Every time the coin lands on tails, you lose $1. Each situation (heads or tails) is equally likely to occur. The EV of the play is:

(0.5 * $1) + (0.5 * -$1) = $0

If you stopped after one flip, then you would either be ahead $1, or you would be losing $1. However, if you could somehow make the bet an infinite number of times, then you would expect to break even although you would go on some very long winning and losing streaks. The play breaks even in the long run (i.e. it can expect to neither make nor lose money).

Now imagine that every time the coin lands on heads, you win $2. Every time it lands on tails, you still lose $1. The EV of the play is now:

(0.5 * $2) + (0.5 * -$1) = $1 + -$0.50 = $0.50

Now the play is profitable, because you’re being paid more when you win than you will have to pay when you lose, and each scenario is equally likely. On average, every time you make the bet, you win $0.50.

To consider a slightly more complicated situation, imagine that you roll a six sided die. When it lands on 1, you win $1. When it lands on 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6, you pay $1. The probability of the die landing on 1 is one in six, and the probability of it landing on any other number is five in six. The EV of this play is therefore:

(1/6 * $1) + (5/6 * -$1) = -$0.67

This bet loses $0.67 on average each time you make it. Although you pay the same as you win, you will lose much too often to make the play profitable.

In general, if a bet breaks even, it can be made profitable by increasing the probability of winning, increasing the profit when the bet is won, or decreasing the amount paid out when the bet is lost. The same bet can be made a losing proposition by reducing the amount of profit to be made, increasing the amount paid out when the bet is lost, or decreasing the probability of winning.

In poker, you try to make correct (positive EV) decisions, and try to influence your opponents to make incorrect (negative EV) decisions as much as possible. Obviously, if an intelligent player could see your cards, he would make decisions with as high an EV as he could (or as low a negative EV as possible).

Consequently, whenever your opponent plays a hand differently to the way he would if he could see your cards, you gain EV-wise, and whenever you play a hand differently to the way you would if you could see your opponents’ cards, you lose EV-wise.

For example, on the river in Hold’em you have A♠ K♥ and the board is K♠ Q♥ 7♦ 6♣ 2♦, which gives you top pair top kicker. If you somehow knew that your opponent held Q♥ Q♣ (three queens), your best possible play would be to check and fold to any bet since you have no chance of winning the pot, and every penny you put into it increases your loss (barring the extremely unlikely chance of your opponent folding). If you were to call a bet in this situation, which is a –EV decision, you would be making a mistake.

There are situations, with more cards to come, where you would call without the best hand in hopes of drawing out on your opponent, and that’s where pot odds come in.

Pot Odds

Pot Odds are the ratio of the money in the pot relative to the size of the bet that must be called. For example:

The pot is $200, and the bet is $100. The pot odds are 200 to 100, which is equivalent to 2 to 1.

The pot is $1000 and the bet is $100. The pot odds are 1000 to 100, or 10 to 1.

The pot is $2500 and the bet is $1700. The pot odds are 2500 to 1700, or 1.47 to 1.

Pot odds form the basis for a great deal of regular decisions in poker. Calculating pot odds at each stage of the hand, even if only approximate, should become second nature.

There are many factors which affect how you act based on the pot odds you are getting, including your position relative to your opponents, and the amount of money you can win or lose in later stages of the hand. We’ll discuss these later.

Some common uses of pot odds include:

Deciding how much to bet (if different bet sizes are allowed), or whether to bet at all

Deciding whether to call your opponent’s bet with the probable worst hand in hopes of drawing out on them

Deciding whether to call on the last betting round with a marginal hand in the hope that your opponent is bluffing

Position

Your position at the poker table relative to your opponents is a very important consideration in deciding how to play a hand. In games that use a dealer button, like Hold’em, Omaha, and Draw, your position is fixed throughout each hand. In other games, like Stud, your position can vary.

It is generally advantageous to act after your opponent(s). That way you get to see what they do before you act, and you can use that information to make better decisions. For example:

You are dealt 5♠ 4♠, a hand which has good potential, on the button in a full Hold’em game. Four people call the big blind before you act. You can call without worrying too much about being raised (only the blinds can raise you).

Contrast this to being dealt the same hand in first position (under the gun or UTG as it is sometimes known). Now the same hand should usually be thrown away because you don’t know how much it will cost to play the hand, or if any of your opponents are going to show strength.

Having to play out of position, where you act before your opponents, is such a disadvantage that you should play much more conservatively and straightforwardly when in an early position.

Other Fundamentals

There are one or two other fundamental concepts that will help you to win at poker as a beginner.

Play Tight

If you play better starting hands than your opponents do, then you will tend to have the best hand at the showdown more often. This means that although you will be throwing away lots of starting hands, when you do enter a pot you’ll be doing so with an advantage.

In early position, play only the very best hands. In a Hold’em game with 9 or more players, consider throwing away hands worse than A♠ J♠. Don’t play speculative hands whose primary strength is in their potential to make a straight or flush. With the hands you do play, raise to limit the field, build the pot and simplify your future decisions.

Expand your starting requirements as your position improves, to include suited connectors like J♣ 10♣ and smaller suited aces like A♥ 9♥ , plus medium strength high card hands like K♥ Q♠ and Q♠ J♣.

Avoid hands with serious kicker trouble like A♥ 4♣, K♠ 7♦, and Q♦ 6♠.

Play Aggressively

If you’re first into the pot, you should often open with a raise. This gives you two ways to win – your opponents can fold, or you can go on to make the best hand and win at the showdown.

If you make a good hand on the flop, you should usually bet or raise. Most importantly betting increases the size of the pot which you expect to win, but it may also prevent your opponents from getting the correct odds to draw to beat you, and gives them the biggest chance to make a negative EV decision. Another reason to bet your good hands is to enable you to bluff later – if you only bet with bad hands, you would become very easy to play against!

Bet correctly

In limit poker games it’s not possible to choose the size of your bet. However, in No Limit and Pot Limit games, choosing the correct bet size is extremely important, as it determines what pot odds you offer your opponent. For example, if the pot is $100 and you bet $100, you offer your opponent 2 to 1 odds (the pot is $200 and they have to call $100). The ideal bet size is big enough to make it incorrect for your opponents to call, but not so big to make them fold. If you could see your opponent’s hand, you might be able to choose the ideal bet size, but since you cannot, try to offer them odds that are unattractive.

Don’t vary your bet size depending on the strength of your hand. If you bet big when you have the nuts and check when you have nothing, your astute opponents will always know what type of hand you hold and won’t make as many mistakes.

A preflop opening raise when you are first into the pot should usually be around 3 big blinds. For example, if the blinds are $1 and $2, a ‘standard’ opening raise is to $6 (later in the book, we will look at other opening raise sizes and the arguments for and against them). If any other players have entered the pot, you should increase the size of your raise accordingly.

A standard bet in the later stages of the hand should be around two-thirds of the pot size. If you don’t have enough solid information about your opponent’s hand to make a more educated bet, bet two thirds of the pot size as a default. For example, if the pot is $30, consider betting about $20.

Don’t make the minimum size bet or raise. By doing so you offer your opponent excellent pot odds to call.

Play conservatively

Until you have a great deal of experience it is best to avoid marginal situations where possible. Play straightforwardly and conservatively, and you give yourself easy decisions. This type of play will get the money against weak opponents.

Five Steps to No Limit Hold’em Greatness

Step 1: Know What Makes a Good Starting Hand

The strength of a two card Hold’em hand can be ranked on three scales:

High Card Strength – the higher both cards are, the better. The scale is exponential – so a three is only slightly better than a deuce, but an ace is significantly better than a king. A hand like 3♦2♠ has very little high card strength. A hand like A♠2♦ has medium high card strength, since only one of the two cards is high (whenever you are likely to only use one of your pocket cards to make your best hand, the hand is instantly weakened). Hands like A♠K♠ and Q♦Q♥ have a significant amount of high card strength.

Suitedness – Having both cards the same suit is an advantage, due to the possibility of making a flush. If one of the cards is an ace, even better, as this gives you the chance to make the best possible flush (nut flush).

Connectedness – Having both cards adjacent in rank is an advantage, due to the possibility of making a straight. The closer together the cards are in rank, the better – so 10♣9♥ is significantly better than 10♥7♣.

To play a starting hand, it should be strong on at least two of the three scales. Let’s look at some examples:

A♥K♥: This hand is suited and the cards are adjacent (these combinations of cards are called ‘suited connectors’). The hand has a great deal of high card strength. Because the hand is strong on all three scales, it’s a powerful holding.

A♠A♦: This hand has the best possible high card strength. It cannot be suited or connected, but because it is so strong on the high card scale there are very few situations in which you wouldn’t play it.

7♦2♠: This is considered by most to be the worst starting hand in Hold’em. It has very little high card strength, and it cannot make a flush or a straight using both cards.

K♣Q♥: This hand has good high card strength, is not suited, but is connected. It is strong on two scales, making it a reasonable but not excellent holding.

A♠6♦: This hand has medium high card strength, is not suited, and is not connected. It should very rarely be played in a full game.

How you weigh each of the three scales depends on many factors, but most importantly on the number of players in the game. In all situations, high card strength is the most important factor. At a full table (9 or 10 players), it is possible to play cards that have little high card strength but are suited and connected – like J♣ 10♣. As the number of players decreases, the value of having suited or connected cards decreases. In a short-handed game (6 or fewer players), high cards are the most important factor.

Remember that before the flop, you are betting on the potential of the cards you hold to turn into a strong poker hand. What is a favourable situation preflop can quickly turn into an unfavourable situation when the board is dealt. Don’t get committed to cards before the flop and play them badly when you miss. If in doubt, fold.

Step 2: Know Your Position

Your position relative to other players is one of the most important factors in poker. It is nearly always an advantage to act after other players, because with each player that acts before you, you gain information. This is why in very early position you need a better hand to play in the first place.

At a 9-handed table, position can be broken down like so:

Seats 1 and 2: The Small and Big Blinds. This is a special situation – you have an advantage preflop, but a considerable disadvantage after the flop. In this kind of position you want to play cards that have the potential to develop into very strong holdings after the flop.

Seat 3: ‘Under The Gun’ or First Position. In this position you are first to act before the flop, and often first to act afterwards. This is a considerable disadvantage, and you should adjust to this by playing only the very strongest starting hands, and exercising considerable caution after the flop.

Seats 4 and 5: Early Position. Much of the field has an advantage on you. Play strong hands only, and exercise caution.

Seats 6 and 7: Middle Position. Here you can loosen up your starting requirements slightly, but you should still be aware that there are players still to act.

Seat 8: Late Position. Here you have an advantage over most of the other players and should act accordingly.

Seat 9: The Button. Now you will act last on every betting round except the first, where you will be in an ideal position to steal the blinds when people show weakness. This is a considerable advantage, and you can afford to relax your starting standards provided you can play well after the flop.

The later the position you are in, the more inclined you should be to play drawing hands, like suited connectors, particularly if several players have already limped in. The earlier your position, the more you should stick to high cards.

Step 3: Know the Odds

Here is a handy reference for common draws and odds in Hold’em. In some cases the odds are approximate because it’s more important to know the odds for different types of situation than it is for very specific matchups.

There are situations when it is correct to call on a draw. For example, if you will make your hand 37% of the time, but only have to call for 20% of the pot size, the call shows a profit in the long run.

Probability of Being Dealt Specific Starting Hands in Hold’em

Odds of Improving on the Flop in Hold’em

*Always using one of your pocket cards

Hold’em Hand Matchups

All percentages are affected slightly by the flush and straight potential of the cards involved, plus the potential for a split pot.

There are also some rare ‘freak situations’ that can occur, e.g. J♦10♦ can be a favourite over a small pair, and A♠K♠ can be a favourite over a pair of deuces.

Step 4: Know How Much to Bet

The size of your bet in No Limit Hold’em is dictated by the size of the pot or the blinds.

Before the flop, a ‘standard’ opening raise is three times the big blind. So if the blinds are $0.50 and $1, a good sized opening raise is $3. This gives your opponent bad odds to call with a drawing hand.

After the flop, a standard bet size is two thirds of the size of the pot. So if the pot is $3, bet $2. This gives your opponent bad odds to call with a drawing hand and forces them to make a decision. If your opponent were to then raise to $6, the decision would be on you.

There are situations where you would want to bet more or less than this standard size. Ideally, you would prefer to bet more with your strong hands and less with your weaker hands. However, doing so might convey too much information to your opponents.

If you make a hand on the flop, such as top pair, and there are possible draws (such as two suited cards or two cards to a straight), it is usually best to make a bet in order to protect your hand, and extract money from your opponent. Giving away free cards to your opponents by checking, giving them a chance to catch up, can be disastrous.

Step 5: Know the Other Players

Players are often classified by poker writers on two scales:

Tight or Loose: A tight player plays relatively few hands and is reluctant to bet or call without a decent holding. A raise from a tight player often means business! A loose player plays relatively more hands and is more likely to call or bet with mediocre holdings.

Passive or Aggressive: A passive player is more likely to call a bet than to make one. An aggressive player makes a lot of bets and raises, and forces other players to make decisions.

It is generally thought that the best style to be is Tight and Aggressive. In other words, wait patiently for the right situation, and then exploit it to the full with aggressive play.

If you notice a player is playing very tight, be more inclined to bluff him. When he bets or raises, assume he has a good hand more often.

Against loose players, play more hands that can become very strong (like nut flush draws), since you are more likely to be called when you make your hand against this kind of player. Be less inclined to bluff a loose player. When he bets or raises, assume he has a good hand less often.

Notice what kinds of players are at your table and adjust accordingly!

How to Play Five Card Draw

Five Card Draw is simple game with only two betting rounds. Each player is dealt five cards. There is a round of betting, followed by a draw, then a second round of betting, and a showdown.

On the draw, each player can exchange as many cards as they wish for new ones – they can even change all five if they want. If a player declines to draw any cards, they ‘stand pat’ and action moves to the next player.

Draw plays best with two blinds and an ante, and can be played with as many as eight players, although it is often played with fewer players online.

Starting Hands

Two key concepts come into play when deciding what hands you should enter the pot with in draw. They are position and the gap concept.

Having position in draw games is extremely beneficial, because not only do you get to see what your opponent does on each betting round before you have to act, you also get to see how many cards they draw before you draw yourself. This enables you to make much better decisions than you would if you were first to act.

The gap concept suggests that you need a much stronger hand to call a raise than you do to raise yourself. It’s common to all games but is particularly powerful in draw.

The net result of this is that you will enter a great deal of pots for a raise when in late position, whereas in early position you will fold some seemingly strong hands. Because the blinds and antes are quite large, it is usually a mistake to limp in, especially in early position.

To open for a raise in early position, you generally want at least a pair of aces, or two pair, kings up. You should usually fold smaller two pair hands like queens up, and pairs weaker than aces. As strong as these hands look, the chances that you are beat already, combined with the chances that you will be outdrawn by one of your opponents, makes them an easy fold.

As your position improves, you can start to open with hands as weak as a pair of jacks or a medium two pair. You can also add in some one-card draws to open-ended straights and flushes, which have a lot of potential in Pot Limit, and the occasional outright steal. Don’t be tempted to call raises with the weak pair and two pair hands, however. They don’t have much chance to improve and will rarely win a big pot when they do.

Unless the table is extremely tight, you should not open with two-card flush or gutshot straight draws. These and similar hands should hit the muck.

Drawing

Don’t keep a kicker. If you opened with K♣K♦A♥2♠5♠, you should draw three to the kings and discard the ace, deuce and five. It’s a common mistake to keep the ace, and you should only do so occasionally for deception, and to confuse opponents when you draw two to trips. Drawing three does announce your hand as a pair; however it doesn’t necessarily prevent you from getting paid off after the draw. For example, if you draw three to aces, and make trips, you may well get paid off by a hand like kings up or a smaller set of trips.

You should usually draw one card to two pair. Providing you also open with one-card draws to straights and flushes and bluff often enough, you should be able to get paid off after the draw by weaker two pair hands. If your two pair is small and the pot is multi-way, the chances of your hand holding up unimproved are slim, so you may consider drawing three to the larger pair and trying to make trips, which is a hand you can be more confident about.

If you have a pair plus an open-ended straight or flush draw, your decision is more difficult. If the pot is multi-way or one or more of your opponents has stood pat, you should consider drawing to the straight or flush instead of the pair, hoping to win a big pot after the draw (or lose a small one).

Trips is a more complicated hand, because by drawing two you will usually give away your holding. Depending on the circumstances, you may want to draw only one card to disguise your hand. You actually don’t hurt your chances of improving much by doing so – they drop from 10.36% to 8.51%.

After The Draw

After the draw, a good two pair like Aces up can occasionally be bet for value, but it’s about the weakest hand with which you can do so. A single pair, no matter how big, or two small pair, is basically a bluff-catcher with which you’ll hope to pick off busted flush and straight draws.

Be cautious with trips and small straights if your opponent has stood pat. Depending on how tight your opponent is, these hands may be easy folds if there is a bet. However, in most circumstances you can bet these hands with confidence.

Always consider what range of hands your opponent may have, rather than focusing on the strength of your own cards. Draw is a prime example of a game in which you play the player, not the cards, and there are many bluffing opportunities to be had after the draw.

The Effect of Wild Cards

Draw is often played with wild cards. Many players look down on the use of wild cards, but if you can adjust properly, they can make a tight game full of nits suddenly very profitable.

Wild Cards affect the basic probabilities on which the poker hand rankings are based. Some hands become easier to make than others, and the average hand becomes much stronger. With wild cards, an entirely new hand rank comes into play – Five of a Kind, which beats a Royal Flush.

Adding one wild card to the game means that it’s slightly easier to be dealt trips than two pair, and makes it more than four times as likely that somebody will make quads. A single wild card also significantly increases the chances that you will make a flush or straight draw, particularly if your draw includes the wild card itself. Adding four wild cards to the game means it’s easier to make a pair than no pair, easier to make quads than a flush or a full house, and easier to make five of a kind than a Royal Flush!

In general, the more wild cards are in play,