Cash games are much more aggressive today than they ever have been before. Players are looking to steal pots whenever they identify an opportunity. Some poker players will give into these re steals and are burning their money, but other players have learned to fight back. The ability to make solid reads and make aggressive plays separates the winners and loses. If you let players steal pot after pot, you will be sacrificing all kinds of money.
It can certainly be a challenge to determine when someone is stealing vs. making a raise with a legitimate hand, and this is what scares some players off. You will not make the correct read 100% of the time, but this shouldn’t even be your goal. Your goal needs to be realistic. If you are correct just 51% of the time, you will see the profits rolling in. It has been said that pre flop play is relatively easy to master, but the games are now tougher and new dynamics leave room for constant improvement.
A lot of players have a tough time learning how to play against players who will go all in at random times. This is most common in tournament or Sit n Go play. There are many different reasons why a player might go all in, some of these reasons will be logical while others will not be. Your goal as a poker player is to decipher what the most likely holding for any player is when they make this type of play.
One of the best ways to put someone on a hand in a situation like this is to use the context clues available to you. If the board makes a full house, straight, or flush very possible, it should be quite apparent that an all in shove would be indicative of strength. If, on the other hand, the board missed a bunch of draws and a player decides to go all in, there is a good chance that they have absolutely nothing.
Now, you are not going to be right 100% of the time, you probably won’t even be right 90% of the time, but you will be making money if you are right more than you are wrong. This is something that a lot of poker players struggle to understand. You can’t look at a few random hands in a vacuum and honestly assess whether or not you made the right play. Being results oriented in poker will get you into a lot of trouble. If your play is going to be the correct move in the long run, you will have nothing to be upset about.
Turbo Sit n Gos are the faster paced cousin of a standard Sit n Go. In most Sit n Gos there will be 15 minute blinds, but in turbo Sit n Gos the blinds will move up every 5 minutes or so. This will force players to accumulate chips much more quickly than would otherwise be necessary.
A lot of players tend to get over anxious in turbo Sit n Gos, but this will be destructive. You will not have a whole lot of time to waste, but you will still have ample time to practice solid strategy. There is no need to be open shoving right away, this is a move that could wait till a little later in the game. Remember that most turbo Sit n Gos will also give players less time to act. If you normally dilly dally over common situations you will find yourself struggling to survive in turbo Sit n Gos.
The increased blind speed and the lowered time allowed to act will be the only noticeable differences, however, so your strategy should not be dramatically altered. Instead you will find that there is only one real dynamic that is added to turbo Sit n Gos, the need to incorporate a push/fold strategy.
A lot of poker players don’t know which flops call for a bet and which flops should be played more passively. One of the large determinants of the proper post-flop action is the corresponding pre-flop action. Pre-flop play will build the framework for the rest of the hand, so it is important that you use this information to help make your post-flop decisions easier.
This holds true whether you have a strong hand, a weak hand, or are just making a continuation bet after a pre-flop steal attempt. It shouldn’t be too hard for most players to learn when they should and shouldn’t bet flops, this is largely because it should be common sense. If you want to build a pot or are playing against a draw heavy board, get the money in the middle. If you are playing against a loose or spastic opponent, get the money in the middle. These are common situations where it should be clear that building a pot is necessary, but there are plenty of players who will wait around anyway. One of the worst mistakes that players can make is waiting for someone else to make a bet and be the aggressor. By the time that this happens you may very well be behind. The more passively you play a hand, the more opportunities you give your opponents to catch up. Don’t give other players free chances to beat you, it just doesn’t make sense.
Sometimes you will end up with a hand that will only beat a complete bluff. These hands are commonly referred to as bluff catchers. Making a call with a bluff catcher is not typically going to be a winning proposition, but on occasion it will only make sense. In order to make profitable calls while holding a bluff catcher, a player will need to have a pristine read on their opponent. You will only be able to beat a very defined and narrow range of hands, so you will need to be quite sure that your opponent holds one of the few hands that you can beat.
When you lose after making a call with a bluff catcher you will probably feel like an idiot. You will ask yourself why you made such a stupid call, and so on and so forth. This is the nature of the game, you will look like a genius in certain hands but you will look like a moron in others. All that matters is that your genius outweighs your idiocy.
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