50 tips part 2

26. ‘I’ll bet you…’
Always play for something. Whether it’s £1, £500 or who has to do the dishes, you always have to put something on the line, otherwise the game becomes pointless.

27. Pick the right spot
When some ultra-aggressive maniac pushes you all-in for the third time in a row, don’t call with a marginal hand just because you’re annoyed. If you have enough chips to wait until you’re in a better spot, fold and wait for that moment. There’s no shame in folding (most of the time) when you can wait for them to do their schoolboy move again and take them to the cleaners. Alternatively, get your chips in first, and beat them at their own game.

28. Aim for the top
Use a little slice of your profits to play satellite tournaments. Do well in these and you could see yourself winning heaps of cash online or playing big name players in a TV event.

29. Lose the beer belly
Keep yourself fit. Going to the gym, playing football or cycling to work will build your stamina for late night sessions. You’ll be alert as others fall by the wayside.

30. Box of delights
Watch as much poker on TV as possible, but don’t get carried away. There’s no doubt that you can pick up a lot of tips from watching the pros but you need to remember that most of the shows you watch are carefully edited highlights. Good poker players do not make moves on every single pot, and that amazing bluff that you saw someone make once, was probably the result of a few hours careful grind and player observation.

31. Go figure
You need to have a basic idea of maths, including ‘outs’ and percentages, but it’s important to make sure you know the exact figures of one hand against another by using our odds calculator, which you can find on this site.

32. Maverick
Experiment! Want to try out a variety of bluff manoeuvres or cover your hole cards with a Post-It note to practise solely playing position? Then drop down to the $5 sit-and-gos or MTTs to hone your skills without blowing your dough.

33. Hear, hear
If you’re playing live leave your iPod at home or keep the volume down, because you could miss some vital information while you’re humming along to Led Zeppelin and end up making a horrible error at the table. And believe us, we’ve seen it happen.

34. Heads will roll
Play heads-up with your mate down the pub for the next round of drinks. Heads-up play is an entirely different game and is the difference between winning a little and a lot. Practise it whenever and wherever you can.

35. Mix it up
Be unpredictable. A standard raise is usually three times the big blind. But it’s essential to occasionally mix things up and try two or five times the big blind if you think that an opponent has got your number. Keeping opponents guessing is a winning play.

36 Push the button
Position is the most powerful thing in the game. Being last to act gives you lots of information and puts you in the best spot for every check, call or bet in a hand. Build the pot, take a free card or scare off the opposition with a meaty bluff. And when you consider you get dealt junk far more frequently than you get dealt monsters, you’re going to have to steal blinds and antes with something. If you can’t rely on getting good cards and having chips, the only certainty in poker is that you’ll have position every rotation of the table.

37. Protection
Use a card protector. You don’t want your pocket Aces to get flipped by someone over-enthusiastically mucking their hand.

38. Less talk, more action
Don’t get caught up nattering away in the chatbox at the expense of playing.

39. Size matters
Manipulate pot sizes. Build the pots up when you’re ahead and keep the pots small when you think you might be chasing.

40. Analyse this
Don’t blame bad luck or other players when you bust out of a tourney. Look back at how you played key hands and identify any errors or situations where you could have profited or negated your losses.

41. Note to self
Get into the habit of keeping notes on other players. If you play regularly on the same site you’re going to run into the same players frequently. Jot down that they always checkraise the nuts – it could save you from getting busted.

42. Show of aggression
If you’re the first to enter a pot, always bet. Limping in is the mark of a weak player. Entering the pot aggressively puts your opponents on the back foot and makes the pot even juicier for when you do hit a big hand.

43. Need for speed
Be aware of the speed of the tournament you’re playing in. Check the blind structure and chip stacks and make sure that you’re not left toothless when trying to steal. In an online tournament with 10-minute blind levels don’t think you’ve got time to sit back and wait for good hands, just because you start off with 50 big blinds. By the time the first break arrives most players will be short-stacked whether they realise it or not. You need to play position, hit your big hands hard, and accumulate as many chips as possible in the first hour. And if you do get short-stacked (less than 10 big blinds) get aggressive and push all-in with any two cards, otherwise you’ll never make the money. You will bust out more frequently playing like this, but you’ll also make the money more frequently too.

44. Read ’em and reap
Read every book that you can lay your hands on. Adopt Bruce Lee’s fighting philosophy of embracing and understanding every concept before you allow yourself to reject them.
Get your head stuck into these for starters:
• Doyle Brunson’s Super System 2 (£19.95) Big Doyle has made millions of dollars from poker, and the original version of this book wrote the rules on aggression. SS2 is a decent update.
• David Sklansky’s Tournament Poker for Advanced Players (£19.95) One of the intellectuals of the game, Sklansky breaks down tournament play atomic particle by atomic particle. If you have a head for figures get stuck in.
• Dan Harrington’s Harrington on Hold’em Vols I, II & III (£16.95 each) 1995 Main Event winner Dan Harrington details how to play big money tournaments step by step with his easily digestible Harrington on Hold’em series. Essential strategy.

45. Lead out
Don’t give up the lead. If you bet or raised before the flop, most of the time you should bet again after the flop, regardless of whether you hit. Most of the time you’ll take the pot down there and then, because the maths dictate that most players miss most flops. If you get heat, and don’t think your hand is best, retreat. But if you think you’re ahead and they’re trying to represent the best hand, test them with a reraise. Controlled aggression is the winner over the long-term.

46. Watch the best
Sit in on high stakes players online. You’ll get quality tuition for free by watching these shark-infested waters.

47. Fat chance
Don’t eat a big meal before you sit down to play. Top British pro Tony ‘The Lizard’ Bloom swears that a monster feed will leave you as lethargic and uncreative as a sloth. Most importantly, scientists agree.

48. Shark alert
Just sitting down for a quick sit-and-go but don’t know the quality of players at your table? No problems. Just go to www.sharkscope.com, type in a player’s username, and you can find out their STT records across a number of poker sites, to discover whether you’re up against fish or sharks. You get five free searches a day, but can subscribe to the service.

49. Complex beast
Accept that there is no right or wrong answer on how to play any particular hand in any given situation – it’s all about feel, remembering what’s happened before and factoring in everything that’s going on at the time: the other players at the table, relative chip stacks, the active hands, your table image, and the limits of the game you’re playing. We never said poker was easy.

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