Learn Texas Holdem

Top 3 Beginner Rooms

• $1000 bonus at PlayersOnly Poker
• $600 bonus at Poker Stars
• $600 bonus at Full Tilt Poker

Anyway, the way it works is:

Look on the display screens to find/choose what game you are interested in. Not being a high roller, I looked for the cheapest blinds available in a No Limit game. Found that they had 4 tables with $1/$2 blinds. This meant, for the entire time I was playing, the small blind was $1 and the big $2. Never changed/increased and obviously they rotated around with the dealer button per normal. I had to wait a bit for a spot to come open. They have pagers available to let you know when to come back there if you want to test out other games. I ended up waiting 25 minutes to get on a table, but I also picked a very busy time.

Once your name is called, you go to the cage (cashier) to buy your chips. My table had a minimum buy-in of $100 and a maximum of $300. This is done to keep someone from buying in for $5000 and just using chips to run over the table. Only way that can happen with the min/max limits is if someone really dominates a table to build a huge stack. I really like that they do this.

BIG ADVICE: buy in for the table max. Do this for 3 reasons.

First, if you show up with less, others will notice and will make judgments about your play and may gun for you. (ok, that could work in your favor, but the next 2 points outweigh that)

Second, you need enough chips in front of you to withstand a normal run of bad cards, losses.

Third, if you happen to get fortunate enough to get a monster hand and you hook someone into a huge clash, you want to maximize your profit. The more chips you have in front of you, the more you can make!

So, I sat down at the table with my $300. The dealer asked if I wanted to come in right away or wait for the button. (I'd have had to post a big blind immediately to play right away). I was going to wait, but then a new situation occurred that I did not know about. Until then, I thought poker rooms made their money off of a rake from each pot played. This one, however, does a "timed rake". Every 30 minutes (or was it 60?), anyone sitting at the table has to render unto Caesar $6 for the honor of playing. Just a table tax. With that, there is no additional raking from pots by Caesar. Not sure if that is better or worse than the other method, but it did seem cleaner. (it does have everyone paying the rake, not just the people winning, so if you win a lot, it would be better!)

With that, I was able to start playing. Noticed one thing immediately. In my home game experience, a typical pre-flop raise is 3-5 times the big blind. At this table, there was rarely a pre-flop raise less than $10. $15 and even $20 was not unusual. With that knowledge, I played a bit tighter than normal. But, when I played a pot, I played it aggressively to win. As is the nature of No Limit, any pot you get involved in has the potential to bust you, so ya gotta be selective. Unfortunately, my cards sucked for quite a while.

I splashed around a bit, trying to get fortunate on occasion with suited connectors, low pairs, etc. Was on a slow gradual drain of chips. Finally got JJ, raised, and everyone folded to me. Won $3. Yippee. Ok, so I had a rock image at the table apparently due to my lousy run of cards. Very next hand, pocket Ks. Exact same raise, this time 3 callers. Prayed for no A on the flop, one hit anyway. (A94 rainbow) I bet out anyway (1/3 of pot) to see if I were beat. 2 folds, 1 call. Turn is another A. here, I make a mistake and bet again, hoping my opponent had made a bad call on the flop. (hope is not a method!) He smooth calls again. River is no apparent help to anyone. I check, he bets huge to blow me out of the pot. He shows me an Ace, so I was in trouble from the flop. Cost me a ton of money.

Eventually, I won an all in showdown, doubled up and ended up winning $50 on the day after 5.5 hours. I ended up getting up right before my big blind and right before the scheduled rake and called it a day. (you can leave at any time)

Great fun. I learned a lot from it, especially the basics of how casino cash games work. If you think this would be helpful to your readers, please share.

I'm going to send you a part 2 that includes my double up hand to see if you think I played it well or not…

Answer:

Thanks for sending this in. I'm sure the readers will enjoy it.

Few notes about the first part:

1. Yes, buying in the for the max amount is important in fixed no limit games since it does allow you to potentially double through for a big pot. Also, it is important to have enough chips in front of you relative to the rest of the players since the amount they bet often has to do with how many chips their opponents have. Being under chipped is being under gunned. When you lose some of your stack, it is normal to keep buying in to keep the max in front of you.

2. I prefer timed rakes instead of regular rakes. The main reason is because it keeps the game going. What happens a lot in raked games is you get all these players constantly getting up and leaving, then playing one hand, then smoking, then leaving, and so on. And if you are unlucky enough to get a few of these guys at your table, then often the whole game can grind to a stop. This happens really often, especially at larger games. You'll have a table barely going and then when a couple players take a break, then the whole game stops because the rest of the players are afraid to play shorthanded. Very annoying! With a timed rake, you get all this nits to play since they don't want to lose even a dollar (a "nit" is a really nit picky person who doesn't like to play shorthanded poker, is a stickler for the rules, is really cheap, is petty and will hold up the entire table with inane arguments with the dealer -- plus they are mainly all rocks that don't win).

3. Most cardrooms also have chip runners that bring you your chips. Suitable ways of getting them are to either ask the dealer to call for you, or to just yell out "chips!"

Question 2:

Ok, part 2 of my first cash game experience… I was around $160 of my original $300 when this hand went down. Had been playing for about 4 hours then, mostly against the same guys. (some turnover when people would bust, but the villain of the story and I had been together for hours) blinds are $1 and $2.

I'm holding AKh in a late position. In a very rare occurrence, 3 people in front of me limp in for just a $6 raise. (very unusual for this table) When it gets to me, I raise it up to $20. The button, a very aggressive player who was pushing all day long, raised me to $40. My read is that he viewed me as weak, 'cause he saw me make some laydowns earlier. The blinds and the limpers fold, so it is to me. I smooth called his raise. (I think I don't re-raise in this situation enough - would you have?) Pot is now $101. Flop comes 9h, 7h, 2c. 4 to the nut flush w AK as overcards. Acting first, I lead with a probe bet of $20. He raises me again to $40. At this point, I have him on AA, KK, QQ, JJ, 10-10, AK, AQ, or even AJ, A10. It is possible he has 99 and I'm in bad shape, but even w that, I have my flush draw to fall back on.

So, again I call. (and again, in retrospect, I think a bigger initial bet or a re-raise all in may have been better) The turn card is an Ace. I now have Aces w K kicker AND the nut flush draw. With $181 in the pot and $80 in front of me, I move all in. The Villain calls in 0.000001 seconds, so I know I'm screwed. He is holding A-7o. Not being a good sport, he begins his victory dance. (I honest don't think he realized I had the flush draw to go with it at that point) anyway, I did have 15 outs (heart, 3 Ks, 3 9s), so I wasn't hopeless. The lovely dealer threw me a King. The Villain was steaming, thought it was a bad beat, etc. I doubled up and never again dipped below my original $300 on the day.

So, in retrospect, I think I played the hand ok, even though I was a dog when the money went in. If anything, I could have been more aggressive. Personally, I think the Villain played it terribly, but almost took all my chips on it. Your thoughts?

Answer 2:

I definitely would have played the hand differently.

1. Preflop, your initial raise is ok. I probably would have made a larger raise since there were already so many callers.

2. The loose player reraised you. Since you saw him doing all kinds of monkey business the rest of the day, there is no reason to assume he has you beat. Most likely, the worst case scenario is that you have a 50/50 situation with him, meaning he has a smaller pair -- QQ or below. Given that he is loose though, chances are he doesn't even have that. I think the best move here is to push all in. Let me explain why (and this has to do with AK in all preflop situations, tournaments or cash games). AK is a 50/50 against QQ, JJ, TT, 99, or any other smaller pair if the AK sees the river. The key here is it has to see the river (after seeing the flop and turn) to make it a 50/50. The problem is though, that if you just flat call the opponent's raise, you dig yourself a hole on the flop when you miss the A or K. Now you don't really have a 50/50 with those other hands since it is likely you'll get shut out if you miss the flop. This is why it is best to get the money in quickly with AK so you can take five cards with it (flop, turn and river). In addition to that, you give yourself extra ways of winning in the event that the player has a middle pair. In a no limit holdem cash game, reraising with a hand like 99 or 88 is fine. It is a whole other thing to call an all-in with that hand. The reason is that you know at best you are a 50/50 and at worst you are a 4:1 dog against a larger pair. This is why if you move all-in preflop, the guy may actually fold the middle pair, which adds to your equity. The last point to moving all-in preflop is that the pot is multi-way and there is enough money in it already. In a game where the blinds are $1/2, a pot over 50 or 60 bucks is about as much as you can hope for. It is a fair assumption that you have the best hand. You need to protect that hand now because the more callers you get, the easier it is for the AK to lose. The odds drastically change when you have two opponents versus one taking a flop against you. You don't want someone with QJ, another guy with A7 and another guy with 98 all vying against your AK. You would much prefer to push all-in now and get heads up with just one of them. The reason you don't just push all-in preflop with AK whenever you get is it because you actually want some action. You're getting action here now, reel him in; no need to hold back; blast him with both barrels.

3. On the flop, I would move all-in again. Or another way to play it would be to check raise all-in. Either option is fine and the reasons are the same as above: you have a monster, the pot is large, and you want to get the money in as quickly as you can, potentially shutting him out too.

4. Say you played it the same way up till the turn card when the Ace hit. Every other betting round I said move all-in, not this one though. When you move all-in here, the assumption is that you have the best hand with the pair of Aces with a king kicker. If that is the case, why do you want to chase your opponent away? I could understand if there was a flush draw out there and you didn't have it and you wanted to shut him out from possibly checking behind you and taking a free card, but that isn't the case, you have the best draw. If the player didn't have an Ace, there is a good chance that the bet here would chase him away. Say he had a hand like QQ, JJ or even KK. It would be very hard for him to call now. Your best way to play a hand is to give your opponent a chance to call with a worse hand and make a mistake. I think I would have checked to him here, and shown that the Ace scared me. The purpose for this is to allow him to commit more money before I pull the trigger. Then when I go all-in, the pot is so large that his call would be a certainty.

My last point is that I think it is a good idea if you get down to half your buy-in or less, the buy-in up to the max again so that in the event of a situation like this, you can milk the guy for the max.

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