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JEFF LARSEN'S POKER PET PEEVE #2: BAD BEAT STORIES


WSOP Circuit Event: Caesars Atlantic City


     Back in March I entered a $500 + $60 No-Limit Hold'em Tournament as part of the WSOP Circuit Event at Caesars in Atlantic City. I was excited and couldn't wait to take down the other 400 or so players for the grand prize of about $70,000, but to my dismay and a few hands of AQ suited and AK suited I found myself knocked out within the first hour of play. Of course I was disappointed and upset with the way things turned out but I soon realized that it just wasn't my time that day and I headed over to the Borgata to find a cash game.
     
     Now I easily could have spent the rest of the day telling everyone I know how my AQ suited got beat by A10 when he flopped top two pair (FLOP: A,10,9), or how when I flopped top two pair with AK suited I was eliminated when my opponent made a flush on the river (FLOP: As,Jc,Ks), but really what good would that do?
    
     Bad beat poker stories and the people who tell them are my #2 poker pet peeve. The way I look at it is that you have to be really naive to think that luck doesn't play a huge role in poker, and second, in order to receive a bad beat you need to have put your money in the middle when you had the best of it and have your opponent suck out on you, and if you consider yourself a good player shouldn't you then be receiving more bad beats then you dish out? If these aren't good enough reasons to stop with the telling of bad beat stories here are 3 more:
    
     1. No One Cares - other players, your friends, and your loved ones don't want to hear it. Most people can't stand whiners and this also gives ammunition to those who don't share the same enthusiasm in poker as you reasons why you shouldn't be playing a game with such high levels of "chance". While most poker players who hear other poker players constantly telling bad beat stories just look at those players as newbs who obviously hasn't been playing poker long enough to understand the variance of the game.
     
      2. Why focus on the negative and not the positive? - It's funny how some players always tell bad beat stories but they never seem to recall the times when they themselves hit a two outer on the river to win a pot. Also, if you're always talking about how unlucky you are then you will remain unlucky. In my experience luck finds people who feel lucky. So stay optimistic. 
     
      3. Take It Like A Man - If everyone played perfect poker no one would make any money, so when the Poker Gods decided it's time for you to time a bad beat, suck it up and take it like a man. Remember, it's just one pot in an ongoing career-long session. Anyone can get fortunate enough to hit their gut-shot straight against your flopped set, but true players know that they're skill will win out in the long run and know who to keep their composure after receiving a bad beat. 
     
      So Shut Up and Deal! 
                                    


JEFF LARSEN'S POKER TIP #2: TOURNAMENT TABLE IMAGE


The ESPN Douche Bag Look

  In poker, image matters. That's doesn't mean you have to look like some douche bag straight off of ESPN to be a good player. Your sunglasses, your backwards hat and your Adidas jacket isn't going to make you win, instead the pattern in which you play your hands will influence how much money you make.  
   
  Throughout a tournament, your table image will help determine how much action you'll get and, ultimately, how you can manipulate your opponents into making big calls or big laydowns at the wrong times. 
While establishing a loose, aggressive image early on can help build your initial chip stack, I believe it's important to develop a tight table image in the later stages of a tournament because it gives you the ability to maneuver at the times when the chips matter most. 

  When the action is folded around, some players will always raise from the cutoff and the button. The problem with this play is that its predictable and can be easily exploited. If you always raise from the button, the players in the blinds catch on sooner or later and will put in a big re-raise with any two cards. You will also find players just calling you with a much wider range of hands from the blinds before putting in a big check-raise on the flop. Why do they do this? Because you have been presenting a loose table image by raising any time the action is passed to you. During late-stage play, this image hampers your ability to maneuver because any time you try to make a move, it's likely that someone will play back at you. It doesn't take long before your loose table image will make you a target for the experienced players at the table (or even the inexperienced players who get tired of being pushed around). The amount of chips you risk by being loose in these situations is usually not worth the reward of just picking up the blinds. Be careful, though, because when you play too tight you end up missing many opportunities to slowly accumulate chips or even just stay afloat. Ideally, you want to project a very tight image while actually being somewhere in between the standard perceptions of "loose" and "tight."


The Mafia/Hellmuth Wannabe Intimidator Look

  I have one very simple piece of advice to help you with this part of your game. It may sound so simple you would wonder why I bother mentioning it but, in fact, this is one of my most important rules: Always fold junk!

  By always folding junk hands, you accomplish a number of goals:
        
      1. You resist the temptation to attempt a blind-steal just because action was passed to you. With the level of aggressiveness that characterizes today's play, it's better to pass on bad hands even in position. 

      2. You avoid pot-committing yourself with a hand that will usually be dominated in a race with a short-stack. For example, if you raise from the cutoff for 3x the big blind with J-3 attempting to steal the blinds and a stack with 8x the big blind moves in behind you, you are in a bad spot. It's better to just avoid these situations altogether. 

      3. Most importantly, you further cement your image as a tight player. Now when you raise with a hand like A-8, you can feel confident that your tight image will allow you to steal the blinds although you're actually playing a bit looser.

  Another temptation players face is to pick on someone's blind just because they view that player as "weak." I rarely pick on someone's blinds without a decent opening hand. Opening from the cut-off with a hand like K-9 suited is about as low as I'm willing to go in attempt to just pick up the blinds. Using a tight table image can help you maneuver through a very tough and large field of players. With a tight table image in the late stages of a tournament you can steal blinds and pick up a number of pots in key situations, and hopefully have enough momentum to get to the final table, where you might be fortunate enough to win.

  Remember, it takes more than good cards to be a winning player. By creating a solid table image in the late stages of a tournament, you may actually be able to play a wider variety of hands than your opponents expect and take down key pots at critical times.

TALES FROM THE SMALL STAKES

THE TOP 1O POKER TELLS



   Everyone in every walk of life has tells. Even people who can beat lie detector tests have tells. So here are the Top 10 Tells for you to look out for the next time you're at the poker table. 

10. Shaking Hands While Betting - this is a two way street tell, 1.the player is nervous and is bluffing but 2. and this mostly applies to inexperience players, sometimes when a player has shaky hands during a big pot it also means he has a big hand, is this case play the player. Would he be in a big pot without a big hand and does he have the balls to try and steal a big pot?

9. Avoiding Eye Contact, Looking Away - most people can't lie to people's faces, he's bluffing.  

8. Covering Their Mouths - the face is one of the keys to knowing if someone is lying, when someone is trying to cover a part of their face it means they're bluffing. But watch out, most players know this is a bluff tell and will do this on purpose with a strong hand, so determine if your opponent is experienced enough to know this. 

7. Sitting Up Straight - if a player is sitting up straight they are definitely interested in the pot and have a big hand to play it with. Players who are slouched over don't care about the pot and don't have a hand.  

6. Chip Denomination - here's how this works: if someone bets $300 and instead of using 3 black chips they use 60 red chips they are bluffing and are trying to use the larger amount of chips as a way to intimidate you. On the flip side, for some reason most players like to hold onto their larger sized chips, like greens and blacks, so if they bet with them, it's safe to say that they don't think they're going to lose them. 

5. Calling Quickly - if a player has their chips in the middle before you're even done announcing your bet, it's a clear indication the player is on a draw. 

4. Eating and Raising - people don't like to be disturbed while they eat and most people aren't going to take the extra effort to try and bluff at a pot when they have food to eat. In most cases, players will not even get involved in a hand unless they have something worthwhile, because they could be eating instead. 

3. Sudden Jump in Seat or Looking at Chips - this is a popular tell, if a player suddenly moves in their seat or looks at their chips they have a strong hand. 

2. Talking/Conversation/Acting - most times talking is a sign of weakness, they don't want you to call, it's kind of like a little kid trying to talk their parents out of grounding them. However, if a player gets to the point where his talking is like a staged act then he's got a strong hand. If a player starts acting like they "really don't want to call" or "don't know what to do with their hand" it means they've made a really strong hand and they want you to think they're weak. The next time your Spider-Sense goes off and you think a player is weak, take the time to make sure they're not Acting. 

1. Shoving Fast or Slamming Down Chips Hard - I call this tell the "Tournament Buster" because I see players in tournaments do this all the time. It's a great way to pick off players in tournaments, if a player quickly shoves their chips into the middle or slam down their chips with authority it means they don't want you to call and they are trying to intimidate you. It's kind of like "when someone acts weak they are strong, when acting strong they're weak".   

So there you go, 10 Poker Tells to look out for the next time you're on the felt, but like everything in life they are not a 100% guaranteed. In the end you should be playing with the instincts you have been developing since you started playing poker, just use these "Tells" as a way to help you figure out the hand.