Texas Holdem Advanced Tips

Player types

If you can nail down a player’s style then you can exploit his tendencies to either take chips off him or protect your own stack. And nothing defines the style of a poker player like their betting patterns.

Suggestive screen names, crazy hats, wild gestures and the myriad of other gimmicks some players use to make themselves stand out on the tables all come free of charge. You’d do well to remember that the information they give you about a player is probably worth about as much. Chips, on the other hand, don’t come for free – if you want to delve into the true character of a player then watch how they use them.

Players can be roughly categorized into four different types based on their betting patterns. These are extreme examples and you’ll probably start to see variations as you play more poker, but for now let’s keep it simple.

Too loose

Not a floozy but a player who consistently bets and calls marginal or poor hands. Lacks patience and can’t stand to be out of the action. Relies heavily on luck to win.

Be on the lookout for two types of loose players

Loose-passive

Sometimes known as a ‘calling station’, characterized by habitual calling of poor and marginal hands which he then under-bets. Engages in little positive action and usually goes home early.

Loose-aggressive

Identified by wild raises, silly bluffs and over-bets – can’t stand to be out of the action and usually doesn’t stick around long as a result. Not to be confused with a SAG (see below).

Too loose should be your style if

You’re bored with roulette and are looking for a new game of chance. Money means nothing – action means everything.

Beat too loose with

Good hand selection, observation and patience. Pressurizing bets trap loose-passive players while slow-playing does the same to loose-aggressive types. Loose players are a welcome addition to any poker table – learn to play against them and they’ll provide you with an endless source of income.

Too tight

The rock. The immoveable object. Holds on to his chips like a child clings to its mother. Only calls premium hands and is generally prepared to fold in the face of strong betting. Usually sticks around longer than the loose player, but has trouble winning on cash tables in the long-term and finds himself blinded out before the bubble in tourneys.

Too tight should be your style if

Poker is merely a light distraction from the real work of grinding an ass-groove into your new office chair.

Beat this style with

Good hand selection and strong, positive betting. The slow-play may be needed to draw them out, but avoid getting trapped. Big bets from this player are a sign of danger. A void calling unless you’re sure you’re winning.

Tight-aggressive

Regarded by the mainstream poker world as the best, most successful style – though by no means the only one that works (see below). Characterized by patience and careful hand selection coupled with strong, decisive bets that turn the screws on opponents without undue exposure to risk.

Tight-aggressive should be your style if

You want to win more than you lose and enjoy taking chips off poorer players. You’re learning all aspects of the game and fine-tuning your bankroll management, hand selection, betting and even playing the odd bluff when the conditions are right. You’re in a happy place.

Beat this style with

Patience, observation, and good solid play. If you play tourneys you’ll usually find two kinds of players still in it after the bubble – tight- aggressive and maybe a SAG or two (see below). The best way to beat a strong tight-aggressive player is to make fewer mistakes than them, watch for weaknesses and look for opportunities to put them under pressure. Choose your hands carefully and only get mixed up in a big pot with a tight- aggressive player if you’re confident that you’ve got him beat.

Super-aggressive

How to tell a good SAG from a loose-aggressive

It can be tough to tell the difference at first but look for these signs:

SAGs know how to ‘change gears’. A good SAG doesn’t go 100mph for an entire game – they look for favorable situations to set out their stall. After the blinds go up and just before the bubble in tourneys are popular with SAGs as are any other situations where players are feeling pressure.

SAGs hunt out the weak. SAGs tend to target chip stacks lower than their own because they know their bets will have even more impact. They also like very tight players and tight-aggressives who religiously play pot-odds.

You rarely see what a SAG is holding. Good SAGs have normally either won the hand or folded before the river, so you hardly ever see their cards. They don’t make dumb calls, so when you do see their cards it’s usually after they’ve called a big bet while holding the nuts – enhancing their table image.

SAGs wind people up. Some SAGs like to use provocation to rile up opponents and put them off their game, but even a non-obnoxious SAG is likely to be upsetting one or two players at the table – he keeps taking their chips away! Good SAGs take advantage of the frustration they create and like nothing better than dumb over-bets coming at them from aggravated opponents. Avoid the temptation.
SAG should be your style if…

People get nervous in your presence – and this pleases you. You cheer for the bad guys in Bond films and regularly find yourself alone on mountaintops, gazing down at the ant-like masses below thinking, ‘ human, all too human’ .

Beat this style with

Patience. It can be frustrating to sit and watch a SAG run a table while you fold hands that, well, just might turn into something. Don’t get sucked into the trap of overvaluing marginal hands against a SAG. If you’re playing a tight aggressive style, a good SAG will recognize this and try to use that temptation against you. Instead, be patient, look for slow-play opportunities and try to take one or two big pots off them rather than getting mixed up in a lot of smaller ones. Burn a SAG once and you’ll often find they leave you alone to go after easier pickings.

What’s your style?

Which style you eventually choose to play is up to you – after all, it’s your time and your money. None will guarantee success and the best merely win more than they loose. As your game develops you’ll also discover situations where you’ll want to change your style, becoming more aggressive to take advantage of opportunities and tightening up to avoid danger.

You’re bluffing!

You’re a tricky one. Taking a pot that’s not rightfully yours! The nerve of it.

Bluffing in poker is nervy, but it takes more than just guts to steal a pot. Successful bluffs are the result of observation, timing and ruthless psychological calculation. They can be pretty exciting too.

The more you play, the more you’ll see bets that look like bluffs – especially in no-limit hold ’em. That doesn’t mean that limit hold ’em games don’t see their share of dodgy action, but limited raises tend to tie one arm behind the bluffers’ backs by reducing the amounts they can bet.

Why bluff?

Aw shucks, isn’t it enough just to play well, wait for good hands and capitalize when you’re pretty sure you’re winning? Well, for some people it is. They’re quite happy to treat poker like a math problem and grind their way to mediocrity. Good players recognize these human calculators and consistently take their money away with pressurizing bets.

Besides, when you think about it, if everyone just played their cards poker would be reduced to a mere game of chance. Poker isn’t a card game, it’s a people game. Learning to play people gives you the opportunity to win more often than the cards would otherwise allow.

That’s not to say a good grounding in the principles of poker isn’t fundamentally important – and you’ll want to come to terms with those before you start trying to get cute. But the more you play, the more you’ll recognize good bluffing opportunities (and situations where someone else is trying to bluff you). Getting to grips with bluffing will not only give you opportunities to steal but also help you recognize when a thief is among you.

Observation — knowing your enemy

We covered player types in Style notes – if terms like ‘loose-passive’ or ‘tight-aggressive’ mean nothing to you, then you might want to check it out for.

Identifying good bluffing targets (and potential bluffers) means paying attention to the competition. That’s why it’s a good idea to keep a good eye on the action even when you’re not involved in a hand and take note when you see something revealing.

Too-tight is the best target for a bluff for obvious reasons – the same reasons that should make you doubt they’re bluffing when they send big bets your way. These types generally assume the worst and are happy to fold in the face of heavy betting, especially if there are lots of ‘scare cards’ on the board (premium cards, flush draws, and straight draws). Players that don’t get involved much and consistently fold in the face of pressuring bets are setting out their stall as too tight.

Tight-aggressive is less vulnerable to the bluff but can still be knocked off a hand. You’ll want to pay attention to the situation (see Timing below), place pressurizing bets (see Psychological calculation below) and be prepared to back off if they don’t look like cracking.

Loose-passive players are a total headache for the bluffer. Calling stations hate to put a hand down that has any chance of winning and bluffing at them just lowers your game to their level. Better to target this player with solid hands.

Loose- aggressive players are also best targeted with good hand selection rather than the bluff. Loose-aggressive will, as often as not, be more than happy to double back your bluff with one of their own and let the cards fall where they may. Loose aggressive is a good target, however, for the slow-play.

Super-aggressive (SAG). They say you should never bluff a bluffer. The disadvantage of trying to bluff a SAG is that they’re far more likely to recognize what your doing (after all, half the time they’re bluffing) and bust you cold. If you want to run something cute on a SAG the slow-play is going to be more successful than a classic bluff.

Timing

Timing is everything to an effective bluff. A well- timed bluff can be a powerful weapon in your arsenal – a poorly timed bluff, a damp squib that fizzles and dies.

Think position

As discussed in Betting, good table position can give you a lot of information about the relative strength and weakness around you. A bluff is always going to be strongest against someone who has to act before you because they have to tell you something about their hand before you act.

Think game stage

This applies particularly to tournaments – which tend to go through very distinct stages of tightening and loosening. For example, right before the bubble, players tend to get very tight in tourneys – after all, no one wants to go out right before the money. Players on medium chip stacks know that, as things stand, they’ll likely make the money, but getting involved in a hand could spell disaster – they’re far more likely to fold in the face of strength than they would be in other game stages.

Cash tables also go through fazes of tightening and loosening, though it’s harder to predict when that might happen. If you notice your table is going through a tight stage it might be time to loosen up and try to make a move, but if you’re on a loose aggressive table you best bet is to tighten up.

Think table image

Circumstances on a poker table can conspire to make you look like a very loose player, even if you’re not. If you’ve taken a lot of pots recently without showing your cards or have been forced to fold a lot in big pots you’ll look loose to the table. This is a bad time to bluff – regardless of the righteousness of your play up unt il then, other players are going to peg you as loose.

On the other hand, similar forces can also make you look very tight. Getting dealt a long string of garbage that you fold before the flop or having to fold all your good pockets after the flop because you just never hit can make you look like a rock. This is a strong position to bluff from because your opponents may have observed your play and assume that you must have monsters when you finally do show strength.

The psychology of bluffing

Poker is a high- pressure game – whether you’re playing for $5 or $5 million. Using that pressure to your advantage is the essence of any good bet, and that includes a bluff.

Target the weak

This may sound ruthless (and it is) but good aggressive play – and bluffing is always aggressive – means thinking of yourself as the lioness and the rest of the table as a herd of big, tasty gazelle. You’re constantly scanning the field for struggling, sick and confused prey that you want to separate from the pack and devour.

Tight-aggressive players who’ve just taken a tough beat can be good pickings, they’re unlikely to get into another dust-up so soon after taking a beating. In tournaments, short stacks are good bluff targets too because of the relative amounts they’re being forced to bet – it’s a lot easier to part with 300 chips when you’ve got 5,000 than it is if you’ve only got 900. Small stacks have the added bonus of a stop-loss. T hey can only take you for the amount of chips they’re holding.

Bet smart

A good bet is a pressurizing bet. Too many beginners make the mistake of assuming the bigger the bet, the stronger the bluff. Over-betting is a sign of weakness and often tips an opponent off that you’re bluffing. After all, if your hand is so strong why wouldn’t you want a caller? Over-bets on bluffs also make you look really dumb if you get busted.

Under-betting when you’re bluffing is another mistake. The thought process is sound enough – “ Oh, if I can just nab this pot for a small risk wouldn’t that be nice?”. Hey, if you’re averse to risk you shouldn’t be bluffing in the first place. The idea is to knock your opponent off a hand – if he’s got one he’ll welcome your small bets to build the pot.

Your bluff needs to convey the exact opposite of your actual situation, it needs to tell the world, ‘”I’m strong, I’m confident and I’d like nothing better than for you to call me in this situation” . The best bluffs leave your opponent feeling smug about having the discipline to fold his (winning) hand in the face of such strength. So imagine you’ve got a very strong hand – what would you normally bet? In a cash game probably between half the size of the pot and the size of the pot – though you’ll find yourself fine-tuning these numbers as your play improves.

Betting smart also gives you an out if you get called. If you’ve still got bullets in your gun after the first bet you may want to ‘fire twice’ and make a second bluff or bow out gracefully and preserve some dignity without getting trapped by over-committing.

The dictionary of deception

The semi-bluff

This is a bluff with outs. The goal with the semi- bluff is to take the pot there and then – but with some backup so that you’ve still got a legitimate shot at the pot if you get a caller (and a nicely built up pot in the bargain).

Most semi-bluffs involve betting or re-raising with an unmade flush or straight draw. Though a big bet with small or middle pair also has chances to improve or take the pot with a second bet after the flop … provided your opponent hasn’t hit their cards.

The out-and-out bluff

Also called a naked bluff (you animal!). Yours is a naked bluff if you’ve got no hand and no reasonable hope of one developing – the only way to win is for your opponent to fold. The naked bluff takes more guts than brains … and it’s oh-so-embarrassing if it gets called.

The delayed bluff or set-up

The delayed bluff is sneaky, which is why we like it so much. It takes foresight and planning and is designed to allow the bluffer to steal the pot as the board develops. It often starts with the bluffer calling a weak hand on a dangerous looking board. Let’s say the board has come all hearts, you’re in late position and everyone else has folded to a small bet that matches the big blind. The bluffer doesn’t try to take the hand there and then, he just calls.

If the opponent checks or comes back with another small bet after the turn the bluffer then strikes with a much bigger bet, say triple the original. Making it look like he’s either slow-playing or (in other circumstances) that the turn card has just made his hand.

The delayed bluff can also be worked on a raggy flop with similar weak betting, especially if the turn reveals a premium card, say an ace. Of course if the person you’re bluffing has the ace, or is slow-playing, this style of bluff can quickly turn sour.

The positional bluff

A positional bluff involves using your position to your advantage, despite having a weak hand. A classic is when you’re on the button and everyone’s folded to you – a strong raise with any two cards is sometimes enough at this point to steal the blinds.

Another positional bluff involves the same play but after the flop, with a strong bet on the button if everyone’s checked round.

Don’t make the mistake of going to the well too often with either of these – good players are quick to spot a pattern and you’ll soon be caught out.

Slow-playing

You could think of slow-playing a hand as ‘anti-betting’. It’s purpose is to trick opponents into thinking you’re weak by either checking or under-betting a strong hand. The aim is to induce action – preferably a bluff, but also bets from weaker hands – then pounce with a large bet of your own. The danger with slow- play is that, by giving your opponent free cards, you’re giving them a chance to develop a hand that can beat you. See Betting for a more detailed run down of the slow-play.

Heads up poker

The final showdown

This is what it’s all about. Making the final two is Nirvana for the tournament player and it’s your reward for some seriously good poker. If you’re regularly finding yourself at this stage in tournaments then your game is right where it should be.

A lot of players find themselves struggling when faced with a heads-up poker situation, simply resigning themselves to it being, more or less, a 50-50 shot and relying on luck to try and win it. Taking this approach to the final two is really selling yourself short. After all, the jump in winnings from first to second is normally the biggest in the tournament structure.

Head-to-head in a multi- table tournament is at least as big a psychological leap as making the final table – and it’s even harder to cope with because now you’re going to be involved in every hand. The first thing you’ll want to do when a tourney goes head-to-head is mentally change gears – eye up your opponent and draw on every ounce of strength and concentration at your disposal.

Strategy

Finding the best strategy will largely be determined by three factors: your chip stack relative to your opponent’s, the blind size relative to your chip stack and observation.

There is no single approach to the final table that is universally effective. If you’ve used a tight–aggressive style to get this far then a lot of what’s got you here is going to have to go out the window. With only two players at the table, every hand you’re dealt that is above average is probably a winner – the higher above average it is the better it s chances of winning. The vast majority of hands are going to be decided either before or right after the flop and the ability to steal your opponent’s blind is critical.

Observation

By the time you’ve faced off against your head-to-head opponent you should be pretty familiar with his game. After all, you’ve spent a lot of time at the same table by now. This is very useful, though it’s critical to remember that everything changes when a table goes head- to- head. Specific tendencies like bullying may disappear because the table situation has changed, but deeper characteristics are likely to remain the same.

Use the first three to five hands to make as many observations as possible and take note of any new tendencies that may appear, then use them to counterattack.

Start with a plan

If you’re a sports fan you’ll know that a forward with a break away facing only the opposition goal keeper has a much better chance to score if he decides early what he’s going to do when it’s time to shoot.

Heads-up in a tournament is a very similar scenario. It happens suddenly and the action is fast and furious. If you go in knowing your options, however, you should be able to make some quick decisions that will help you score.

Of course the cards you draw are going to inform those decisions, but you can’t always guarantee they are going to come (or that your opponent will want to mix it up when they do) and the blinds are so high by now that you won’t have the luxury of folding endlessly while you wait for monsters.

So, if you’ve pegged your opponent as tight then it might be worth deciding that you’re going to double the blind pre-flop on two of the first five hands. This will achieve a few things. First, it gives you the chance to gain a big advantage right from the start. If your opponent folds regularly to your pressure, not only have you taken a lot of chips from him but you know that it’s going to be relatively cheap and easy to steal from him down the road. Plus, he now knows he’s going to have to make a major commitment to stand up to you (or steal from you) – it’s going to cost him two or three times as much to either keep you from seeing a flop or to steal from you. If he’s unlucky enough to do this when you have a strong hand, there’s your chance to take a big pot or even win the tourney right there.

The second advantage this play gives you is information. If your opponent reacts to your raises by going super-aggressive then you’ll know to back off a bit and look to tempt him with a slow-play.

Either way the idea is to make players pay over the odds for their cards.

Big stack

This can be tough, but now is the time to show some patience. Especially if the blinds are really hurting your opponent. All the pressure is on them and the last thing you want to do is let them off the hook with a cheap double-up.

The only hope your opponent has of winning is to take more pots than you do. If he’s tight, keep constant pressure on him by raising the blind regularly with better than average hands and try not to betray your strongest hands. Call or raise modestly when you have big strength in the hope of springing a trap and don’t be afraid to pull the trigger with any A with a kicker down to nine or pockets if he bets big. Unless he’s very lucky or very aggressive he’ll be forced to fold most times to your bets and bet well over the odds to win with his stronger hands.

If he’s aggressive you should still keep the pressure up, but avoid frittering – especially calling the small blind with weak drawing cards. Better to let those go in the hopes that your opponent is holding the monsters he’s been waiting for. Keep the pressure up and let him know he’ll have to bet over the odds to defend his blinds when you do have strength. Avoid his all-in unless you have strong cards (see above).

Short stacked

Your situation is as described above but in reverse. You need to win more pots than your opponent. This means you’re going to have to play your hands aggressively. Any decent hand will require a commitment if you’re betting first. Feign weakness on your strongest hands to try to induce the bluff or a bet on a weaker hand.

If he’s tight it’s time to get stealing, but don’t over-commit so much that you can’t back away if you happen to bluff into monsters. If he’s aggressive then, as much as you can, bide your time – though you’ll soon have to re-raise or go all-in with cards that may not be your first choice. The good news is that you’re probably only a double up or two from drawing even. This can happen very quickly in head-to-head and you need it to – time is not on your side.

Pot odds - working the numbers

Using pot odds and implied pot odds to get an edge
Understanding pot odds and implied odds will sharpen up your betting, ease your decision making and help keep you consistently in profit over the long term… and it’s easier to do than it may look at first (even if you’re amongst the numerically challenged). Where you take it beyond the basics is up to you. Some players base their whole game on the odds – successful players tend to see this side of the game as one of many weapons.

Pot odds

In a nutshell, pot odds are your chances of making a hand compared to the amount of money in the pot and the cost to get in. If you consistently bet when the pot odds are in your favor, over time you can expect to come out on top. It’s that simple.

Here’s a simple illustration. Everyone knows that the chances of flipping over a red card from a deck of 52 standard playing cards are 50/50, or 1 in 2. Let’s say I offer you a bet that pays off at 3 to 1, or three times your bet, that the next card is red. Assuming that I’m playing it straight, you’re getting great pot odds. The chances of your black showing up are 50/50 and the payoff is $3 for every $1 you wager. By the time we’re done playing you’ll have to loan me bus fare to get home.

Now the odds of any particular hole cards developing into a made hand are just as straightforward as the red card vs. black card example above and we’ve got this handy chart in Odds and outs that does a lot of the work for you.

A real world example in poker...

Let’s say you’re in a no-limit cash game holding...

 

And the flop looks like this...

  

The big blind is 30 cents. There are two callers in the hand who both bet the minimum after the flop, so the pot is now, say, $1.95. What now? Let’s take a look at the pot odds.

First we know that, as things stand, the pot is potentially offering you a $1.95 return for the 30-cent wager it would cost to stay in the hand. That’s a payout of better than 6 to 1. So, if you’re looking for good value, you’ll want to know if your chances of winning the pot are better than 6 to 1.

Let’s look at the cards...

Right now you’ve got nothing, nada, zip, a big fat zero. The bets coming before you indicate some strength so you know that, at this point, you’re probably losing. But wait. The two previous bets aren’t exactly screaming powerhouse, are they? Assuming neither player is slow-playing it’s safe to assume that their on pairs or drawing hands.

So, having thought a little bit about things, you know that filling in the straight or the flush would most likely make you the winner of this hand. What’s more, hitting your K or Q would also put you in a very strong position (though you’re too smart to forget about the straight the Q might make for someone else).

Now it’s time to glance at your chances. You do this by adding up all the cards left in the deck that could complete your hand. In this case there are nine cards that could finish your flush (the nine hearts you haven’t seen yet) and three cards that could finish your straight (the three tens out there). That’s a total of 12 cards (or ‘outs’) to complete a monster hand against 47 that you don’t know about – that’s a 4 to 1 chance on winning a bet that pays 6 to 1.

What’s more, there are three kings and three queens that could come – giving you another six outs to make a very strong hand. Add it up and you’ve got a massive 18 outs in the 47 cards that you haven’t seen yet. You haven’t got time to calculate exactly how that compares to the pot odds, but a quick glance tells you it’s a heck of a lot better than the 1 in 6 of hitting an out on the turn (actually it’s close to 5 to 2, or 40 per cent).

A couple more things…

First, you may have noticed that figuring pot odds is not an exact science. Sure, you can get your calculator out and parse out the exact chances of making your hand down to the third decimal, but knowing what other players are holding involves observation, intuition and sometimes just plain old guessing. Put Kristine on Ah-Jh in the example above and things change pretty dramatically. Bottom line, you can’t do good poker with a just a calculator.

Second, pot odds work over the long term. Play enough poker and you’ll find yourself going through stages where hands that just shouldn’t beat you do. Bad beats and suck-outs hurt but remember, play the odds correctly over the long term and you will win it back, and more.

Implied odds

Implied odds are all about what‘s going to happen next and what it might cost you to see your hand through.

One common situation where implied odds come into sharp focus is the high pair versus the straight or flush draw. Let’s say your playing at the same blind level as the example above and but this time both players bet $1.20. That would make the pot $3.75 when the betting gets to you after the flop and it would cost you $1.20 to stay in the hand.

Now your pot odds dropped to about a 3-1 payout (almost acceptable considering your odds of hitting) BUT you need to see the turn AND the river to make those odds work. With aggressive betting like that after the flop it’s unlikely that players will just check on the turn and river. It’s a safe assumption that it’s going to cost you even more to see the river if you don’t hit on the turn.

What’s more those big bets should be telling you something about the strength of you opponents hands. With big bets (and calls) like that there’s a decent chance you may be up against two pair or a made straight – both of which would make pairing your K or Q later on fruitless.

Stack size also effects implied odds. If a player is short stacked then the amount they can bet later on in a hand is limited. For example, if a player with a stack size of $10 bets $5, you know that they can only bet another $5 in that hand and you can adjust the implied odds accordingly.

Bankroll management

Keeping your eyes on the prize

If you need to get motivated to pay attention to bankroll management then look at it like this – without a bankroll, you’re not playing any more poker. Manage it properly and, as your skills develop, you could soon be in a position where you’ll never have to top it up again. That’s free poker for life. Your bankroll is also your ultimate scoreboard. Poker is a game and the object of any game is to win. Golfers have handicaps, ball players have scoring averages – poker players have a bankroll.

What is a bankroll anyway?

It's money you set aside specifically for playing poker. It’s not the rent money. It’s not the next car payment. It's not even the beer money. It’s the poker money, and should always be an amount you can comfortably afford.

The goal in poker is to increase your bankroll by consistently winning at the tables. Do this and manage your bankroll well and you'll never have to call on outside funds again.

Does size matter?

The aim of bankroll management is to sustain your poker playing indefinitely – so your bankroll needs to be big enough to get you through tough times and back you up in the good. Mason Malmuth, a mathematician and respected poker author, says the ideal amount is 300 times the size of the biggest bet at your chosen level of play.

Three hundred times sounds like a lot, but experienced poker players all know – no matter how good you are – you’ll still hit long losing streaks. Look at it this way, if you were playing $5/$10 stakes with a $600 bankroll, one or two bad beats could wipe you out. Take the same bankroll to $1/$2 tables and you can still suffer a few bad beats, and more besides, without being taken out of action. Only have $60 to devote to poker? Look for stakes starting at 10¢ /20¢.

Mind games

If you play well and stick to a sound set of bankroll rules you shouldn’t go broke. Endless free poker for a one-off investment is reason enough to focus on this part of your game, but proper bankroll management doesn't just give you a strategic advantage – it also gives you a big psychological edge.

It might not make sense at first, but to be comfortable and confident at a poker table you can't be thinking about money. To understand this, just look at elite- level athletes. Jocks who face crunch situations thinking, ‘The game is on the line here’ or, ‘ It’s going to be bad if I screw this up’ usually do. Michael Jordan, on the other hand, was famous for consistently scoring in clutch situations with millions of dollars at stake and championships on the line. Ask him what he was thinking when he sunk those baskets and he’ll tell you, every time, “putting the ball in the net, nothing else, just doing what I needed to do to put the ball in the net”.

Poker puts you under a lot of pressure – that’s part of the fun of the game. Managing that pressure is crucial and you just can’t do it if you’re distracted by the fear of loosing money. Money you’re afraid to loose isn’t poker money. Sound thinking at a poker table means knowing the chips you're playing with aren't the same kind of cash you spend at the supermarket – they're tokens and their value relates solely to what is going on the table.

Where do we go from here?

As you play, your bankroll will rise and fall with your fortunes. You may find yourself moving up a playing limit as you accumulate cash – or dropping down to deal with a bad run. The eventual blind levels you settle at are a matter of personal decision. What stakes do you feel comfortable playing at?

The final word

Malmuth’s bankroll theory works. Tens of thousands of poker players can testify to that. But the theory isn’t a blue print to making money on its own. Your success also depends on good, diligent play. And the only way to achieve that is through study, practice, and control.