How to Win at Poker in 4 Steps

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The best poker players in the world tread a calculated path to success, and work constantly to improve their game. Today we’ll discuss four steps you must take to follow their lead—steps toward becoming a winning player. Doug Polk contributed to this article How to Win at Poker Step 1: Pick a game type and…

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How to Check-Raise with Short Stacks Like an MTT Boss

vs turn check-raise

Check-raising is an indispensable play in tournaments. Since average stack sizes are shallow, a check-raise will typically represent a large portion of your remaining chips. This allows you to put a lot of pressure on your opponent(s), because in order […]

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5 Tips for 4-Betting That Every Aspiring Pro Should Know

4-bet 5-bet ninja quiz

A single 4-bet pot can make or break a session. Putting lots of chips in the pot early is not for the faint of heart. When you apply the right strategies, however, you’ll earn your opponents’ respect and win more money. Today we’ve prepared 5 tips from high stakes pro Ryan Fee that will put…

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How to Bluff with Flush Draws Like a 3-Time Bracelet Winner

missed flush draw bluff q7s

Not all flush draws are the same. This may seem like an obvious point, but it is one that draws attention to a more fundamental concept: different flush draw spots demand different strategies. We’re about to take a look at 3 example hands in which our Hero holds a flush draw. Each of these were…

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Use Solvers to Revolutionize Your Poker Game with Fried Meulders

Solvers have revolutionized poker strategy. As the name suggests, a ‘solver’ is a powerful piece of poker software that offers ‘optimal’ solutions to a specific, user-inputted scenario. (We use ‘optimal’ in the sense of ‘game theory optimal’, but must be cautious using the term ‘solved’, as No Limit Hold’em is not, strictly speaking, a solved…

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5 Not-So-Easy River Spots Explained By A Game Theory Expert

Discussing hands with friends is a great way to get better at poker. Now, imagine if one of your friends was top 6-max player and game theory expert Fried Meulders. Discussing hands with him would be an incredible way to get better at poker. Fried is a successful regular in the ultra-tough Zoom cash games…

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6 Essential Tips for Dealing with Downswings in Poker Tournaments

downswings in poker

Downswings hurt no matter what poker format you play. But downswings in poker tournaments are the stuff of nightmares because variance increases as more players enter a tournament. Avid players of large field tournaments will experience incredible highs–like winning a WSOP bracelet–and devastating lows–like losing for months on end. If you are running bad in…

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The Ultimate Guide to Preflop Multiway Pots (And Squeezing)

check-raise module

Multiway pots are extremely complex. As more players enter the pot, the size of the game-tree increases. This makes finding the best play a more complicated task than it usually is. Many players, including top pros, frequently make mistakes multiway pots. We’ll break down 8 multiway pot examples in this article. These examples help demonstrate…

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This Is Why You Should Use Small Bet Sizes

When I finished writing Applications of No Limit Hold’ em a bit over 4 years ago, my favorite concept to talk about was overbetting. In many ways, it’s still is my favorite topic. That’s because once the theory behind overbetting is laid out, the situations where overbetting is correct are usually […]

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How To Open-Raise In MTTs So The Big Blind Doesn’t Crush Your Soul

Parker Talbot aka tonkaaaap live on the felt.

MTTs are constantly evolving. New trends emerge, old tricks stop working as the fields learn to adjust, and so on. But while cash games and sit-and-goes are getting closer and closer to being solved by software and the like, MTTs remain the only format where exploitative play is where the money is. Sure, MTTs have…

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Does Your Poker Journey Feel Stuck? So Did Doug Polk’s

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Does your poker career feel stuck? Have you been playing in the same low- and mid-stakes games for what seems like forever, but now feel that your once-achievable poker goals are just pipe dreams? Do you feel like your love for the game keeps you playing, but that it’s ultimately pointless? You are not the…

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How to Check-Raise Like a High Stakes Poker Pro

poker terminology check call bet raise fold

Players that don’t check-raise are easy to beat. If you won’t check-raise me, there are only two possible outcomes when I bet: You fold and I win the pot You call and take a turn card out of position You therefore fold away all of your equity, or allow me to realize all of mine.…

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Print Money with Your Flop C-Bets In and Out of Position

Every poker player knows how much easier it is to play hands in position. In position players get to play looser, bet more frequently and ultimately win more pots than an out of position player can. This article is about flop continuation bets(aka c-bets) in single raised pots– how to most effectively beat down your…

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When Should You Bet the Flop in Multi-Way Pots?

starting hands multiway

A unique approach is required to avoid spewing away your chips in multi-way pots. This is simply because as more players are in the hand, the raw equity of your range decreases. Just look at how much Ace-king’s equity suffers as more random players are added to the pot: That’s nearly a 26 percentage point…

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