Proper bankroll management is when you play at certain limits to avoid losing all of your money due to a bad run of cards, and every poker player must expect from time to time for that to happen. This is what playing within your bankroll is all about.

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Whether you’re playing for fun or a living, a bankroll is necessary. Without it you’re just stuck playing in the freerolls that places like Carbon Poker offers or the play money tables at the online poker rooms… and what sorta fun is that ?

Some of the best Pro’s in the world will tell you to bring no more to than 5% of your bankroll to the table when playing poker and that’s very solid advice for anyone to use. I personally think this works out really well for buying into tournaments.

I’ll be honest about it though, I do like to stretch the limits a bit and play with 10% of my bankroll if it’s at the cash tables for any one session. The advantage to only bringing 10% (or the 5%)of your bankroll to the felt is that you can’t lose more if things go bad.

But whether it’s 5% or the 10% just remember to step down with your buy-ins if you go on a losing streak. Never keep playing above your bankroll and taking that gamble that you’ll win it all back. It’s always better to win it back slowly at smaller stakes than it is to lose it all in one big hand.

* Always learn the software of the poker room you have chosen to play at before depositing any money. Every site offers play money games and you should spend a little time playing these in order to get used to how everything operates.

* Many beginners to online poker get distracted by doing too many things at once, like talking on the telephone, reading their e-mails, or playing too many tables at once. I even had one person tell me they knit and watch TV while playing ! I say let your opponents be the ones who make mistakes at the table because of them not paying attention, not you .

* Always study your poker game to learn how to improve your results. One of the biggest online poker mistakes by many beginners is playing way too many hands. I advice beginners to start off with playing only strong hands until they become more experienced. You can learn to improve your game by reading poker books, web-sites and by joining some good online poker forums. Most folk at forums are always ready to give out some playing advice.

* Poker is a game which is meant to be fun, and to have fun you need to be sure that you are playing with money that you can afford to lose. Learn to manage your Poker Bankroll…..

Whether you are playing poker for fun or to make a living, a bankroll is necessary. Here at Carolina Gambler I advice you to always practice good bankroll management. That is the key to becoming a successful poker player that most every beginner to online poker fails to realize. At FullTilt Poker Academy, Poker Pro Chris Ferguson recommends playing with only 5% of your bankroll in any one cash table session and 2% when playing multi table tournaments. The big advantage to doing that is so you can’t lose more than that if things go bad. And if they do, move down a step with your buy -ins. It’s better to be a winning .25/.50 player than it is a losing 1.00/2.00 one !

So till next time, play smart and never bet more than you can afford to lose !

Small Ball Poker

The name of the play style used by Daniel Negreanu is “Small Ball Poker”, a play style he his credited for having created. That’s probably not accurate as many poker players before him have used similar poker strategy, but Daniel certainly deserves some credit for having defined and “formalized” it.

The concept behind Small Ball Poker is relatively simple. It’s about playing a wide range of starting hands, but without investing too much money in the pot. The idea involves playing not just premium hands, but pretty much any hand that is suited or connected, as long as the price to do so is relatively cheap. The Small ball poker style works best in cash games but can work in phases of poker tournaments.

How Daniel Negreanu Plays Small Ball Poker

Daniel’s strategy usually involves playing hands when he has position. It doesn’t mean he doesn’t play in early positions. If he has a good starting hand, he’ll play it obviously, but you’ll notice he plays a lot more hands when he’s in late positions.

Typically, the small ball poker players enters the pot with a small raise that is no more than 2.5 the big blinds, or simply calls the minimum bet. Beyond position, an important factor that Daniel Negreanu will take into considerations is the number of players in the hand. Pre flop, the goal is to see a flop without investing much. But the odds of making a hand, or the probability that no one else makes a hand, is greater when there’s fewer players involved in the hand. The style does invoke small raises on occasions, where the purpose is to discourage limpers from sticking around, but you should save your raises for when you are in position.

Table Image Matters

By frequently playing from good positions and by seeing many “cheap flops”, the small ball poker style creates an aggressive player image and this is critical to the strategy. The idea of playing suited or connected hands is that you will on occasions make some really big hands and when they happen, you want get as much money out of your opponents as possible. That’s why the aggressive image is important: opponents have to doubt your hand strength when you bet. If they are prone to see you as a bluffer, they will be prone to calling, and this is exactly how Daniel Negreanu manages to be successful. By playing many hands, his chip stack gradually decreases, but when he does make a big hand, he also reaps big benefits, making his chip stack increase in the long run.

Editors Note: This article is written by an online associate .

Obviously, the first step for anyone is to understand how their poker game of choice works. Read about the rules online, in a book, or just watch a youtube video that explains it. Before considering any strategy, you should play the game for at least an hour or more, just to get the feel of it. Go to your favorite poker room and try it out with play money. The goal is not to win, it’s just to get comfortable with the game mechanics.

Now that you understand the mechanics of the game, focus on developing a specific skill. Trying to do everything at once doesn’t work. Things you could focus on include:

1. Table position concepts
2. Table image concepts
3. Reading the board cards (in games like Texas Holdem)
4. Betting
5. Reading opponents
6. Bluffing

In fact, it is recommended you learn the topics in this order. You can’t read opponents effectively if you don’t understand table image and betting. So how can you go about learning things relating to these general topics?

1. Read poker article online
2. Read a book (Daniel Negreanu wrote several good ones)
3. Watch videos
4. Get a poker mentor/ Join a poker school
5. Watch other players play – online or on TV
6. Join a discussion forum and ask questions
7. Join a poker league
8. Play regularly

To become a good poker player there are plenty of things you can do, but there is one thing you MUST do: play and gain experience. The problem with reading a book is no one can tell you if you truly “got it”. If you misinterpret a concept, you’ll apply it incorrectly in the real world. By attempting to put the theory in practice, that is where you’ll learn. The same goes with poker articles.

Poker schools and mentors are great, but they cost money. There are some good ones, and some not so good ones. Joining a school means you have access to a live person. It’s not just you watching videos and learning on your own, it’s getting an observer to coach you and give you personalized attention. Again, this is beneficial, but not cheap.

Watching videos is certainly less boring than ready dry content, and if the poker training video is well done, it will be much easier to “get”. You’ll learn by seeing actual examples shown in the poker training videos. In fact, you can learn poker strategy directly from Daniel Negreanu and other poker pros. Check out the Daniel Negreanu Poker Training program, it’s quite good. Of course, quality comes at a price and the program isn’t free but you can learn a lot in no time. About 50 new poker training videos are added each month so.

Watching other players can be a great way to learn. One thing you can do is fire go to your favorite poker rooms join a table not as a player but as an observer. Try to identify the table image of all the players. Try to anticipate how a particular player will act before he does, and try to identify patterns. An example of a pattern can be related to how a poker player will act in certain table positiosn, like the button. Some people always raise on the button. Some always call. Poker is a game of patterns and humans are creatures of habits so the two go hand in hand.

Discussions forums can be good or bad. It’s great to have the chance to ask someone what they think about a poker topic, but you don’t really know who you’re dealing with most of the time and you might just end up getting bad advice.

The last point was about playing regularly. Truly the best way to learn is to play. Strategy is important, but there’s only so much you can learn by reading and talking to people. At some point, you have to sit down behind a stack of chips and put those concepts into practice. Learning poker strategy isn’t really that hard to do. The challenge lies in knowing when and how to apply strategy. This is because poker strategy is contextual. The best poker strategists are those who can accurately assess their environment, and react accordingly. That only comes with experience.

For the player that is new to online poker I recommend starting off with a site that has a good sign up bonus to work with as they are playing the sit-n-goes (SNG). For a while I made most all my money playing them at PDC Poker ( use coupon code “UPTO600″ to earn a 100% bonus on deposits up to $600. You also receive 14 days entry to the daily $500 freeroll ) . I would sit down and play for a few hours each evening and slowly build up my bankroll at the site. Usually I would play till I would not finish in the money (normally about the 5th or 6th game) and then quit for the afternoon. The whole time while playing I would not only earn money from the game, but would be making money with the 100% matching bonus too.

There are many factors to consider when playing a sit-n-go, but some of my advice includes doing the following;

1. My first bit of advice is to get experience at the lower limit SNG games before you even think of moving up to higher limits.

2. Play tight and aggressive in the early stage of the game. In sit-n-goes most of the money is made in the late stages of the game. I have found that you can actually coast your way to the final 3 by playing hardly any hands at all, and just let the other players bust each other out.

3. During the early stages of the tourney, watch and learn your opponents’ betting patterns. This goes for multi table tournaments (mtt’s) as well !

4. In the middle and late stages of the game change up your game a bit. Remember that the value of starting hands like A-10 offsuit and K-10 offsuit along with others are fairly weak during the early stages of the game, but they rapidly increase value as there are fewer people in the game. Adjust your play accordingly.

5. After about 4 people have been eliminated you should start to play more hands and become more aggressive, but play smart. Knowing when to fold’em greatly increases your odds of making the money !

6. Your goal should always be to make the final three. After that, you can become super aggressive with any good hands that you may have.

So good luck at the felt and remember, always play within your bankroll.

Loose/Aggressive - If you play loose/aggressive you are the type of player that’s not afraid to make big bets or raises, and will re-raise others quite often. Being a loose/aggressive also means that you don’t need to be holding premium cards in order to take a shot at taking huge pots.

Loose/Passive - This is a style that most players really don’t want to be. You’ll know if you are a loose/passive player when you stay past the flop too often and waste money by betting past the turn or river with second rate cards, and don’t raise or re-raise folk when holding strong cards.

Tight/Aggressive - There are plenty of poker players that fit this style of play and do enjoy some success. You are this player if you fold before the flop quite often and only bet past the turn or river when holding great hands. The only problem with this style of play is that other players can and will steal your blinds a lot when you’re not holding the nuts.

Tight/Passive - This style of play isn’t as non-profitable as loose/passive, but it’s not the best either. This player will fold before the flop quite often, wait for big hands to play past the flop, and does not take advantage of his big hands by making raises. Much like the loose/passive style, it’s best to move away from being a tight/passive player if you want to make money with poker in the long run.

Setting the Image

Now that you know what type of poker player you are, we need to decide which image you want others to see at the felt. Loose/aggressive is a great category to be in since many of the best cash game players in the world play loose and aggressive, but my opinion is that you want others to think you are the tight/aggressive type.

Many newcomers to online poker may wonder how this may be possible. The answer to that is by choosing the right times to show your hole cards. That is one of the features I really like at Carbon Poker. You can show either one or both hole cards at this online poker room. Besides PDC Poker, I can’t think of another online room that lets me do this.

Every so often I’ll show that big hand pre-flop if everyone has folded to my raise just to let them see I was raising with a monster hand. You want others to “see” you only raise with big hands. This will improve your overall table image and gain that respect from opponents. Your future raises will be called carefully and anyone looking to re-raise will remember your style of play and might think twice. This will set up that tight image and allow you to play and even pull off the big bluff with the smaller hands at times.

Just remember to always play both the small and big hands the same way and be cautious, as the more advanced poker players can pick up on your style and make the necessary adjustments.

Probability

The first element of mathematics in poker that you need to know for poker strategy is probability. Say for example that you are in a 10-handed poker game of Texas Hold‘Em and you need to know the likelihood of rivering a three of a kind if you already have a pair. Well, you can figure this out through basic probability. You know six of the cards in the 52-card deck, leaving 46 of the unknown cards (you
need to count all unknown cards including the cards of your opponents because one of the two remaining cards of that rank is just as likely to be one of those cards as it is to still be in the deck). Since there are 46 cards left and two cards of your rank left, you know the chances of getting a third card of your rank on the first card are 1 in 23. This means that the odds against you getting your third card of the same rank on the river are 22 to 1.

Pot Odds

The second element of mathematics to know in poker strategy is pot odds. Pot odds are simply the odds that the pot is laying you to call. If there is $30 in the pot and you need to call a bet of $5 to see the next card, then the pot odds are 6 to 1. It is as simple as that. You can also expand pot odds to include implied odds, which take into account what will happen on the next card. If you are in a $2/$5 limit game against a single opponent and you are facing $30 to $5 (or 6 to 1) pot odds on the turn but think that you can get another bet out of your opponent if you hit your winning hand on the river, you can change those pot odds of 30 to 5 to implied odds of 35 to 5 and factor in that extra bet that you think you would win. This would make the final odds in the calculation 7 to 1 as opposed to 6 to 1.

Putting Them Together

Compare the odds against you hitting your hand to the pot odds and if the latter is better than the former, you are mathematically good to call. If you are 4 to 1 against making your hand on the river but are being laid pot odds of 6 to 1, calling is the mathematically correct thing to do because it has a positive expected value.

The advantages of playing position in poker are obvious to the more experienced player, you can see what your opponents are doing in front of you and collect information before investing any chips.

To show you the value of position it makes sense to look at the following example for Texas Hold’em :

You’re sitting on the button, the strongest and last position at the table, and another player from middle position called a raise from one in an early position before the flop. Now you see the flop which gives you top pair with a mediocre kicker. The original raiser makes a continuation bet and the other player raises this bet. At this point you haven’t invested one single chip on the flop but you can make a very easy decision. Your hand not be strong enough with the weak kicker and you can easily fold.

Now lets say you are the original raiser in the early position and you have to act first after the flop. You can easily make a solid bet with this pretty strong hand but you’ll see a raise and maybe a re raise after your bet. You are then “between a rock and a hard place” and probably should fold.

This is one big disadvantage of being out of position and playing. But if you act first it can also be your advantage because you have the so called first-mover-bonus also called first-in-vigorous. That means that the player that makes the first move to win the pot is usually the favorite. For instance you see a flop and hit a flushdraw. You can now semi-bluff out of position, having the first-in-vigorous and most likely take down the pot.

Furthermore you have the chance to check-raise if you’re out of position. You can check first and then make a raise when another player makes a bet.

Position in poker is not a one way street. You can’t say if it’s good or bad in general. It just depends entirely on the situation and the longer you play, the easier playing position will come.