Feeling....................... LUCKY!

LUCK

"Chance (Luck ) favors the prepared mind." Louis Pasteur 

Luck will find you if you go looking for it, both the good and the bad, mostly the bad!

        Mental Exercise:

              Note who is playing the most hands, who is playing the least hands. 

                       What is the average raise by the loose aggressive players?

                       Who only calls? 

                       Who folds to raises? 

                       Who is aggressive against draws?

Bad Beats and Bonehead Blunders. 

Are the BBs, giving you the Heebie Jeebies, brought on by belligerent bluffing? 

          Bad Beat = Luck beat the best hand at the Turn or River and no one slow played.

          Bonehead Blunder = the best hand was trapped from the beginning or slow playing resulted 

                         in luck winning at the river. Don't give LUCK a chance to beat you at the river! 

                You have AA and slow play it to the river and get beat.

                You have AA and go all-in, reraising, before or after the flop, and get beat at the river.

One is a Bonehead Blunder and the other is a Bad Beat!

Aggression

The risk of never challenging is always greater than the risk of challenging.

“In a balance of mutual terror, whoever acts first has the advantage!”

Being aggressive before the turn or river, might have caused your opponent to fold, instead of winning on the turn or at the river.

Loose Aggressive players try to manufacture luck by playing a lot of hands. They typically raise out of position when first to play, knowing that the tight passive players are likely to fold their marginal hands. They usually raise around 3 big blinds preflop, which also shuts down the players who have bought in for less than 50 big blinds and players who have less than 50 big blinds. 

Loose Aggressive players want action and will put in 10% of their stack with their marginal hands, middle connected and/or suited hands. When in position, you have to reraise these players with your top 15 hands and call with your top 25 hands. Out of position it's best to just call your top 15 to 20 hands and raise with your top 15 hands.

Experienced tournament players are likely to make a bluffing bet on the river, if they think the other player is a weak or timid player. A bluffing raise is more likely to be used if an experienced player thinks the other player is more concerned about conserving chips in the middle of the tournament.

If sandwiched between an All-in raise and a previous raiser, when an over card comes on the Flop, the raiser is likely to fold a smaller pair to a re-raise. A Semi-bluff should be used more than out-right bluffs, early in tournaments.

The Patience Factor: 

From the controversial book: Arnold Snyder, The Poker Tournament Formula 1. 

            Required Reading for Tournaments: Arnold Snyder's, The Poker Tournament Formula 2.

The blind structure in relation to the number of chips each player starts with is the primary consideration on deciding if you should even enter a tournament, yet alone on what your strategy should be. The lower the patience factor, the more aggressive you have to be.

The lower the patience factor, the more luck prevails over skill.

The best way to get lucky, is to keep your head in the game!

You don't get lucky before the flop.
All luck happens after the flop.
After the flop you must keep this in mind.

• There are two types of hands in Texas Hold'em. 
• A pair or better and a draw to a straight or flush. 
• Every hand played after the flop is a contest between these two types of hands. 
• The draws are broken down to connected cards, gapped cards, suited connectors and suited gapped cards. 
• Anything else isn't worth looking at except when you are heads-up.

Your head can get into a kind of fog when you keep getting marginal hands or no playable hands for a couple of hours at a loose table.When this happens, it's best to take a walk for a few hands, which may help clear your mind a little.

I see a lot of players that change seats or even tables when the cards turn cold. I don't subscribe to the notion that if I change my seat, it will change my luck. You make your own luck, which is what those loose aggressive players are trying to do anyway by playing 80% of the hands and raising 50% or more with them, regardless of position. I love those players, when my head is in the game.

I NEVER BLUFF

The Only Good Hand Was the Last Hand - FOLD EQUITY

The Only Good Hand Was the Last Hand - FOLD EQUITY

 

        http://www.exceptionalpoker.com/?p=1043

"It is the equity a player can expect to gain due to the opponent folding to his or her bets."

Folding?
It depends as much on the type of table you are at as it does the type of player you are playing, maybe more.

Most comments about any type of play center around a specific player and tends to be focused on becoming heads up after the flop, if not during the flop.

That only happens about 30%-40% of the time live and almost nonexistent on-line. Aggressiveness is the only game in town when paying on-line, but in a live cash game, aggression is sometimes fleeting, most times it's random to intermittent.

If you're at an aggressive table, there may be no real fold equity, because you are usually up against 2 to 3 villains. If you don't really know how much they have in their pocket, which you don't, you can't really tell how aggressive they are going to be. If you have watched the table, which you should have before sitting down, you can tell who is the Loose Aggressive and who is the Selective Aggressive player. Their fold equity is quite a bit different than the passive player that sits in-between them.

Essentially, fold equity is the extra amount of equity you gain when you factor in how likely your opponent is to fold. Working out the correct amount of fold equity relies heavily on your ability to read an opponent. In other words, you need to be fairly certain of your chances to get an opponent to fold. But how about 2 villains or even 3?

The formulas you read about in the most popular strategy sites are only good for a head-to-head battle.
With multiple opponents, you have to rely on multiple reads and your initial threat assessment for each villain.

A final word of warning…https://www.partypoker.com/how-to-play/school/advanced/fold-equity.html

When playing against really loose aggressive players, your fold equity will likely be close to zero. This is also the case against players with really short stacks (very few playing chips) at a cash/ring game as well as in tournaments. Short-stacked players are less likely to fold, as they need to take more risks.

I NEVER BLUFF

Phill's Little Green Book Notes

Updated 2/11/2017

I have all of Phil Gordon's books, including Poker: The Real Deal, one of my first poker books. His "little books", Green, Black, Gold and Blue, show his, as well as the game's evolution. They all have some good math basics, as well has his own "tricks", like how to play Ax. His best tip is the Gordon Pair Principle, about the odds someone is holding a better pair preflop.

Here are a few of the tips from the Little Green Book.

Psychology: Timing of Bets
Try to always take about the same amount of time to consider options and take action on a hand.  Not too fast, not too slow.
(use a clock or watch to vary your time; like when the second hand is between 10 and 12, act         
faster or way slower, like you are thinking about your outs or  may or may not have the nuts.)

Beating Tight and Passive Players
Tight/Passive players play so few hands that, while they may hit the flop, Phil says 35% with AK,
I think it's more likely they will only play a hand maybe once out of 9 hands, which means about 35 hands have to be played before they hit it. You should be able to pick up several small pots against them.
 OK, what's tight and what's passive.
Tight players only play the top 10 hands and even then bet weakly on the bottom half of that spectrum. 
Passive players will play a few more hands, but quickly fold to any action if they didn't hit their hand. 
Raises, Re-raises, and continuation bets will usually get either of them to fold.

Beating Loose Players
Play tight, wait for great flops that hit your hand, give them hope and lots of rope.

Implied Tilt Odds
You want to play against players that are easily emotional about either their bad beats or your bad beats and any hand they suck out on. Playing into their emotional outbursts and bad plays, even with a marginal hand, will eliminate them.

Tells: When they look at my chips.
Usually means they have a good hand and they think I'm weak. If you catch a monster hand, you can over-bet the pot or check-raise.

When they reach for chips
Kind of depends on who's looking. If they reach for chips after looking at my chips, but I bet first, make the raise. If they are not looking at my chips or anyone else's chips, they have something, but it's my turn to bet, I'll bet my hand strength depending on how many chips they appear to be grabbing and look for a pause in their grab, which means they aren't as strong as they wanted to project.

The Quick Call
Players that quickly play the flop, usually a minimum bet, frequently have a drawing hand. If they had a good hand, the top pair or better, they would be considering what to raise. If they missed the flop, they are thinking about folding or bluffing, which takes a little more thought.

The Slow Call
It's usually a raise with a strong hand or a fold with a weak hand. Calling, after a long pause, could be a ploy to suck you into a monster hand or a draw to the nuts.

Texture: After the Flop
What cards are in play, how will they interact with other players hands or hand ranges and what bet is likely to come based on the board texture. Most bets are likely to be 25% to 100% of the pot. Any less is usually a missed fishing expedition; any more is either a poor bet by a weak player with the nuts or a bluff at a nut draw or 2nd top pair. The more players still in the hand, the more likely someone has at least top pair.
   
Living up the "Weak means Strong and Strong means Weak" philosophy, Phil leans toward making weaker continuation bets with strong hands in order to entice a player to call. With weak starting hands that have good outs but miss the flop or maybe hit 3rd top pair, betting half the pot usually get slightly better hands to fold, top pair will usually re-raise though, so it's an easy fold. With medium strength hands, betting half the pot to 2/3 of the pot gets some players with slightly better hands to fold and players with Nut potential, but worse hands, to call.

After the Turn and a scare card hits
Phil likes to just check if he had the lead but it didn't help him and call a small or continuation bet, he's not liking a check-raise here.
If it didn't hit you, It may have hit them, how many players still in the hand should determine how scary the card is. If it's only you and one other player, make a continuation bet, it's still a game of fish, so you have to ask if it hit them, if you just check, they would most likely make a continuation or value bet which would cause you to likely fold. If there is more than one other player in the hand, it either hit them or helped them, if it didn't help you, you have to check, or if you do have a good hand or the nuts, check raise.

It's all about the odds to improve.
Based pretty much on your outs.
9 to 10 outs, like a high flush draw, maybe a nut flush draw, is about a 35-45% chance of hitting your draw, you should bet about half the pot, if you're the first to act.
4 to 6 outs, like and inside draw to 2 over cards, is about a 15-20% chance. Phil likes to bet about 2/3 the pot, but I think you need at least one Broadway card to even consider that bet and you need  to only have one other player in the hand.
Less than 4 outs is a real gamble. The newer professional and amature poker players are much more aggressive now and love to gamble. Phil likes a pot size bet here, to take the pot down, but I think position is the relevant factor here and knowing what type of player you are up against and it can only be one, two or more players are likely to have you beat regardless of position.

Tournament Strategies: Stealing the Blinds
Stealing the blinds is a critical element in tournaments. At a full table, you need an above average stack size to steal one every 13 hands or so, and position will likely make a more optimal timing of once every 16 or more hands a better option. In a six handed or less table, you should only be trying to steal from the last three seats anyway.
A blatant thief is easily caught.
It's hard to steal the blinds from "Next to BET" instead of "First to Bet", when first to bet actually raised. You have to not only be in position, but have a playable hand to commit grand larceny. You also have to have that gut feeling that they are actually trying to steal the blinds, which means they have to be no more that two seats on your right. More than two seats away is not likely a steal, but some type of good to great hand. If you're the button, then there are two seats on your right that are stealing seats, the Hi-Jack seat and the Grand Larceny seat.  
BB-SB-BTN-CO-HJ-GL-M4-E3-E2-UG

The Green, Black, Gold and Blue books from Phil Gordon.


I NEVER BLUFF

Mr Lucky's Law on SLOW Playing

USS Cairo was a City-class ironclad gunboat constructed for the Union Navy by James Buchanan Eads during the American Civil War, 1861, was named for Cairo, Illinois.

There is nothing Ironclad in playing poker.

OK, here's the deal. Poker players, professional and amature, hate players who slow play a hand.
That being said, there is no Sportsmanship in Poker, same thing with Hockey, but that another story. Unlike Hockey, Poker players are not supposed to cheat and slow playing is not cheating. It's what some players do to build the pot because they think they are invincible with hands like AA.
Slow playing will lose you money.

Here's my RULE or axiom:
If you can be beat at the river, you will be beat at the river, when it will lose you the most money.
If you have a hand like AA, KK, or QQ, you can slow play before the flop if you are the first to act and you have normally aggressive players after you, with AA, KK you should raise any bet they make at least 2x to 3x their bet, call with QQ; otherwise always play aggressive from start to finish.

About Slow Playing

Slow playing (also called sandbagging or trapping) is deceptive play in poker that is roughly the opposite of bluffing: betting weakly or passively with a strong holding rather than betting aggressively with a weak one. The flat call is one such play. The objective of the passive slow play is to lure opponents into a pot who might fold to a raise, or to cause them to bet more strongly than they would if the player had played aggressively (bet or raised). Slow playing sacrifices protection against hands that may improve and risks losing the pot-building value of a bet if the opponent also checks.

David Sklansky defines the following conditions for profitable slow plays:^[1]

• A player must have a very strong hand.
• The free card or cheap card the player is allowing to his opponents must have good possibilities of making them a second-best hand.
• That same free card must have little chance of giving an opponent a better hand or even giving them a draw to a better hand on the next round with sufficient pot odds to justify a call.
• The player must believe that he will drive out opponents by showing aggression, but can win a big pot if the opponents stay in the pot.
• The pot must not yet be very large.

*On 12 December 1862, while clearing mines from the river preparatory to the attack on Haines Bluff, the USS Cairo struck a "torpedo" (naval mine) detonated by volunteers hidden behind the river bank and she sank in 12 minutes; there were no casualties.

I Never Bluff