Archive for Newbies

You may have met me in one of many poker rooms; I get around. Chances are, you may think I’m exceptionally rude. Now that I think of it, I may well be, though honestly not intentionally. Typically, I have both player and observer chat set to ‘off’. My reasons for this — […]

In Phil Gordon’s Little Green Book, he points out the importance of position in No Limit Hold’em - although I think it applies to Limit Hold’em as well. Being last to bet, he says, is having “good position”.
The importance of your position in a hand should not be underestimated. Being on the button (being the […]

If you’ve been to Vegas, are a Blackjack player, or just watch the semi-dramatic T&A eye candy jiggle TV show Las Vegas, you know that casinos frown on card-counting. In fact, it’s illegal. If you get caught. There have been many theories put forth regarding card-counting, and all of them have been mathematically sound - […]

Gaming columnist Alan Krigman has a fascinating article about French philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal’s speculation on the existence of God. Pascal concluded that of the four possible conditions, the best was to wager on the existence of God. Krigman tries to extend Pascal’s wager to gambling, particularly slot machines, and suggests that “you’re ahead […]

One thing to remember while deciding whether to play a pre-flop hand in Texas Hold’em is that given a deck of 52 cards, there are 3 (K, Q, J) x 4 suits = 12 face cards. Add in the 4 As and 4 Tens, and you have 20 “favorable” cards in a deck of 52. […]

The online edition of a local British Columbia newspaper has an inspiring story of a poker player making it to a large Canadian Texas Hold’Em tournament (3000 players) taking place in early May at the Niagara Fallsview Casino in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada.
As the article indicates, Marty Kelly has been playing poker for 20 years […]

Allow me digress for a moment from Poker. It’s been said that to become an expert at anything, it takes 10,000 hours of relevant activity. I’d have to say that this is a pretty reasonable figure. At 40 hrs per week, it would take about 5 years to achieve expert status in something.
Consider, then, based […]

A couple of months ago, I saw young Phil Ivey taken down in the last legs of a tournament. Just like golfer Jack Nicklaus had an Achilles heel of the Glen Abbey golf course in Oakville, Ontario, Canada (near Toronto), Phil has an Achilles heel of A-A preflop. It was his second time in a […]

As I said in the last post, there are a couple of key skills that you want to develop if you plan to be a Texas Hold’em tournament player. While being able to read your opponents is especially important in a physical game, it’s harder to use the skill online. However, understanding your odds is […]

Whether you plan to be a serious professional Texas Hold’em poker player online or in person, or just want to get together with friends for a weekly house game, you’ll gain an incredible advantage over your opponents if you learn a few primary skills:

(1) Learn how to calculate your approximate odds of winning, before and […]