Poker 101 – Newbie tips!
This was published 15-07-2009I’m going to try and go with a regular feature for the next little while, and post tips that i wish i had known when starting out as a poker player. These tips will be old hat to seasoned online players, but may be an “AH-HA” moment to anyone who has been burned by what they deemed a bad beat, but what in reality was poor playing, or just poor spotting skills.
The first tip is this: Never chase the bottom of a straight!
If you’re sitting on 4/5 (suited or not) and happen to see a flop of 6/7/8, you may get REALLY excited. Flopping a straight usually means you’re changing your game from trying to make a hand, to convincing that table you’re drawing so you can extract as much money from them as possible. In this situation, you’ve flopped the ASS end of the straight, and you should play it extremely aggressively (or very carefully). If someone plays back at you (ie/ you bet the pot and get re-raised all in) you’re likely looking at the guy who was holding 9/10 and flopped the NUT straight. If you call, you will be upset with yourself (and maybe even that dude who just took all your money).
Think your play through and make sure you’re not playing to conservatively…but dont get all your money in when there is a good chance someone is waiting for you to do exactly that.
