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Poker Tournaments for You This Week
There is never a dull moment in a poker player’s life. Obviously, the main reason for that is the constant existence of poker tournaments and poker events that one can participate in. These events are not just for making money, but also to have some fun and get better at the game in the process. Several live poker tourneys are lined up for this week and the coming weeks. Here is a note on some of the tournaments you can … Read the rest
2012 PokerStars Macau Poker Championships Announced
PokerStars is one online poker room that never takes a break from hosting tournaments. The poker room recently released details about its upcoming event, the PokerStars Macau Live Tournaments. The Macau tournaments hosted by PokerStars is one of the biggest and richest poker events held in Asia. It includes 4 major poker series – Macau Poker Cup (MPC) Red Dragon, Asia Championship of Poker, Macau Poker Cup Championship or MPCC and the yearly Asia Pacific Poker Tour event at Macau. … Read the rest
The $30,000 Winner Wednesday Dozen Unveiled
Winner Poker has partnered with pokernews.com to bring a new promotion to its new members. The online poker room announced its new promotion called Winner’s Wednesday Dozen Freerolls, which literally lets you win free money. The new promotion is open to all the new players who register with Winner Poker and make a deposit. The promo will run for three months, and all you need to do is play poker and earn as many Winner Points as you can. Here … Read the rest
Switching Gears
Friday, July 4th, 2008 by Phil
Adjusting the level of aggressiveness in your poker game is an essential part of becoming a successful poker player. It is important to know which players you can gain an edge against by playing aggressively and which player’s you need to be patient and play passively against. In it’s simplest form, switching gears just means changing from being passive to aggressive on occasion. For some of the great poker players, switching gears becomes an art form, especially in no-limit hold’em.
If a player was to maintain the same style of play throughout a tournament, his opponents would eventually learn how to exploit that player’s weaknesses. There would be very few opportunities for this type of player to induce mistakes from their opponents.
Here is an example of a common scenario where choosing the correct level of aggressiveness has allowed me to play optimally against certain opponents.
This begins with me raising a few pots in a row. On some occasions I may have good cards, on others I may be bluffing. At this point I have raised perhaps 6 of the last 8 hands. Throughout these hands, I become aware that my ability to bluff is quickly diminishing. Eventually it will reach a point where I know that I will need to have a hand because I will not likely be able to bluff anyone successfully. This is usually helped by turning over 1 large bluff after raising continuously. Doing this will confirm to everyone that I have indeed been running them over with garbage cards.
In this scenario, if I am then able to get some good cards, it is important to continue to play aggressively. I will usually even go into a hyper-aggressive gear at this point. This is a spot where my opponents will begin to make large mistakes because of their perception of me. When a player decides that he is not going to allow me to raise any more, and I am then able to pick up a better hand than him, he is sure to lose a lot of money.
It’s a great feeling to look down and see pocket aces after you just showed the table a few big bluffs.
I used to tell a friend of mine that no matter how often I am bluffing, if I ever raise 4 pots in a row, I will always have a monster hand when I raise the 4th time. This is because a player can sometimes get away with bluffing 2-3 hands in a row, but the 4th hand tends to be the point at which opponents will lose respect for their raises. Anytime that you raise several hands in a row, it is important to adjust your aggressiveness according to your hand strength in the subsequent hands.
To continue with the original scenario…now that you have successfully bulldozed through a few of your opponents with some aggressive play, the other players will likely begin to try and set traps for you. If you are able to recognize these spots and switch gears, you can take full advantage of some of the mistakes that your opponents will begin to make by compensating for you.
For example, if you hold a drawing hand and your opponent plans to check-raise you on the flop, you can elect to take a free card to try and draw out. When this happens, you will have forced your opponent to play the hand in a way that is far from optimal.
