Stop in every week to read the discussion for the Tip Of The Weekhttp://www.drcheckraise.com/phorum/list.php?92Thu, 09 Sep 2010 14:51:03 -0700 Phorum 5.2.9a http://www.drcheckraise.com/phorum/read.php?92,19797,19797#msg-19797 http://www.drcheckraise.com/phorum/read.php?92,19797,19797#msg-19797
Hope you find it opens some doors of thought for your poker growth.

Doc]]> DrCheckRaise DrCheckRaise Tip Of The WeekMon, 02 Aug 2010 16:42:31 -0700 http://www.drcheckraise.com/phorum/read.php?92,18785,18785#msg-18785 http://www.drcheckraise.com/phorum/read.php?92,18785,18785#msg-18785
I have been at many live games where someone is sporting headphones and I find it anti-social.. I find that the player listening to the music often does not know where the action is, and sometimes are unaware of the action. Even professional players have made mistakes because of the inability to hear. I know of an instance that was written about in poker pro Mag recently where one player simply said all in without pushing his chips out. The dealer repeated the declaration... the player with the headphones did not hear the announcements... Then took off his headphones, asked the dealer if the action was on him. When the dealer said yes, the headphone wearing player declared all in trying to steal and unaware that someone was all in in front of him... A costly mistake to relax to the tunes of the BeeGees.

I have always found that the voice inflection of the player as he makes a declaration is valuable information. Why would anyone want to eliminate that source of information from their arsenal? Talking to other players is a great way to discover what is important to them. An accountant will play poker much differently than will a construction worker. You cannot learn these valuable things while by withdrawing from the social aspect of the game....]]> DrCheckRaise DrCheckRaise Tip Of The WeekMon, 22 Feb 2010 14:13:14 -0700 http://www.drcheckraise.com/phorum/read.php?92,18747,18747#msg-18747 http://www.drcheckraise.com/phorum/read.php?92,18747,18747#msg-18747
Looks like I'm going to help out a bit here at DrCheckRaise Tip Of The Week.

I'm not much of a writer so deal with it......LOL

To start, I was looking around the Internet to come up with some basic tips any player can use to improve there game. Here are the 10 best Do's & Don't's I came up with:

1.) Don't Play Every Hand, Fold More, but still be aggressive!

2.) Don't Bluff Just For Bluffing's Sake, there is an art to it!

3.) Don't Play Drunk or High, keep a CLEAR head!

4.) Don't Stay in a Hand Just Because You're Already In It, stick to your GAME

5.) Don't Call at the End of a Hand to "Keep Someone Honest"

6.) Don't Play When Mad, Sad, or in a Generally Bad Mood, Unless you would like to give away your money!

7.) Do Pay Attention to the Cards on the Table, but you have time, there not going anywhere.

8.) Do Pay Attention to the Other Players, observe your opponents, even when you're not in a hand
for online poker keep an eye on betting patterns.

9.) Don't Play at too High Limits, use good bankroll management

10.) Pick the Right Game for Your Skill Level & Bankroll you will know when your are ready to move up, and your bankroll will let you know to. LOL

I hope all of you can use the tips, they work for me!!!

If any of you see something I should add please do!

Untill next time Cya

ty gg
VADER]]> VADER DrCheckRaise Tip Of The WeekThu, 28 Jan 2010 05:06:08 -0700 http://www.drcheckraise.com/phorum/read.php?92,18028,18028#msg-18028 http://www.drcheckraise.com/phorum/read.php?92,18028,18028#msg-18028
This is much more effective than simply leading out with a bet on the flop, plus it traps more money in the pot for you to add to you stack.]]> DrCheckRaise DrCheckRaise Tip Of The WeekMon, 18 Jan 2010 18:12:26 -0700 http://www.drcheckraise.com/phorum/read.php?92,17428,17428#msg-17428 http://www.drcheckraise.com/phorum/read.php?92,17428,17428#msg-17428
I think the biggest mistake, the thing that makes more people go broke than anything else is moving up in limits. This is where most people go wrong. People move up in limits for all the wrong reasons and it is normally the beginning of their downfall.

Someone is winning consistently, and they move up in their game and risk more. The more the risk, the more differently you play. So if moving up in the limits causes you to play differently than you did when you were winning, it can be detrimental to your success. The other thing that happens is that you don't realize that others are playing differently at those levels as well and you may not be adjusting properly. You lose a buy in and you continue to rebuy instead of moving back down to your successful buy in amount.

Another thing that people do is move up in levels because they took some beats and they think they have to increase their risk to get even. Fatal mistake.... Look I want you to buy in one time and consistently win.. over and over again...

Stay in the buy in amounts that you feel the most comfortable... If you feel yourself getting board, the solution is not to increase your risk.. You might consider changing games.. to Omaha or something else to break up the boredom.. but increasing your risk is NOT the answer.]]> DrCheckRaise DrCheckRaise Tip Of The WeekThu, 24 Dec 2009 21:40:50 -0700 http://www.drcheckraise.com/phorum/read.php?92,17146,17146#msg-17146 http://www.drcheckraise.com/phorum/read.php?92,17146,17146#msg-17146
These events are great for learning how to place the correct bet under the circumstances. It is much easier to see what the proper bet is for the desired outcome so you normally get to see how that effects the outcome of the game. Here are a few examples of what will become more evident to you in these low risk games.....


First of all you will almost never see anyone bluff into a dry pot. Everyone there tends to understand that survival is the only goal, and that elimination of others is how you accomplish this.

You will be able to more clearly see the correct bet when someone is short stacked... Let me try to explain. Let's say that there are 6 players left in the game with blinds of 250/500 and one of them is short stacked with 600 chips. In a situation like this if you have above average chip stack and you want to play this hand you only want to limp here so that you DO NOT DISCOURAGE other players from entering the hand. the best case senario is that everyone gets in the hand and the short stack pushes all in allowing everyone to simply call the extra 100 so that you have the majority of the table working towards the same goal of eliminating the short stack and everyone else getting paid.


Another situation may be where there is a player who is forced all in with the blind and you are first to act. You want to call here with any two cards and hope that everyone else calls as well so that the same goal is achieved of eliminating the forced all in....

These events also teach you bubble play.... Say there are 7 people left and it pays the final 5. You want to pick on the two shortest stacks here my raising the minimum, especially if there are almost the same size..... most of the time both of them will fold attempting to out wait the other. This is a great way to build some security chips when others are playing tight to make the money.

The double up sit-n-goes are a great place to learn to play on the fears of the other players at the table. It is also a great way to practice patience and strategic laydowns. For instance.... if there are 4 people all in and2 or more of them could eliminate you.. you might want to consider laying down AA since more than likely they will do the work for you to get you paid and you will not have to put yourself at risk.

There are many other ways that these games can fine tune your game. please add what you have learned about chip management, bluffing, applying pressure and folding big hands here in this thread.]]> DrCheckRaise DrCheckRaise Tip Of The WeekWed, 30 Dec 2009 07:53:43 -0700 http://www.drcheckraise.com/phorum/read.php?92,16628,16628#msg-16628 http://www.drcheckraise.com/phorum/read.php?92,16628,16628#msg-16628
You must remember that you are so small stacked, you are not going to be pushing anyone out of the pot, so your all in is meaningless to the others at the table and their decision to call or fold.

One thing to remember is to think past the pre-flop action even though you won't have and chips to control the action post flop... your decision pre-flop can have some influence on what the other players do after the flop.... Example.

Say the blinds are 500/1000 and you have 1050. Alot of people are tempted to simply shove all 1050 into the pot. I think in most cases this is a mistake. You see if you shove, more times than not, you will simply get callers from all around the table, and a check down to the river to eliminate you, but if you were to simply call, then you increase the possibility that someone might raise in later position to get you all in, or they might bet after the flop to get you all in.. well it is only 50 to you to call, but now it will be 1000 for the other players in the hand to call, causing the other players to fold, giving you better odds, thus giving you protection.

Now, how to choose your cards to move all in with, as a short stack.

A pocket pair might just be the worst cards to choose to go with in this situation.(with Multiple callers) I mean even pocket Aces lose their ability to win with every caller that decides to get into the pot, and after you have shoved all your chips in you have nothing left to do that would allow you to protect those aces against draws. So in this case, aces are simply a 2 outer.

Give me a hand like 9 10 suited. That is the sort of hand I want to be all in with as a short stack. Hands like that have the best chance to win in a multi-way pot, which this more than likely will be because you are so short stacked. Suited connectors, have a chance of making a straight or a flush and both of those hands are usually powerful enough to survive a multi-way pot.

The last thing to remember is this... sometimes it is counter productive to get all your chips in before the big blind gets them in for you. Say you are under the gun with the Big Blind on your right. If you choose to go all in on this hand, and you win that hand. You still may not have accumulated enough chips to survive both the big blind and the small blind. So you might be better off to simply wait until the Big Blind comes and let the cards fall where they may, because if you happen to win that hand the small blind is less of a factor for you giving you 10 more hands before you have to make any decisions like that again.

Here is your example. You are Under the gun with the Big Blind on your right. The blinds are 500/1000 with 50 antes and you have 350 chips with 9 other players at the table. If you move all-in in this instance, and you get 4 callers, including the SB, you will get 1700 chips.. then next hand the BB and ante will cost you 1050 leaving you with 650, and the next hand you will be the small blind costing you 550, leaving you 100 chips, and being able to see 2 hands after that before the antes get you all in....

It might be better to let the Big Blind choose your cards for you, take the same example but with the big blind choosing your cards.

In that case you still have the same 1700 chips if you win that Big Blind hand, BUT.... after your Small blind passes you, then you will have 1150 in chips..... giving you some more free looks (less antes) at some more hands.

I hope you find this a help, and I look forward to your comments or questions.]]> DrCheckRaise DrCheckRaise Tip Of The WeekSun, 10 Jan 2010 17:07:44 -0700 http://www.drcheckraise.com/phorum/read.php?92,16627,16627#msg-16627 http://www.drcheckraise.com/phorum/read.php?92,16627,16627#msg-16627
If there is a subject that you would like to see addressed in the "Tip of The Week", simply send me a Private Message, and I will answer your tip soon.

Enjoy, learn, and share.

Doc]]> DrCheckRaise DrCheckRaise Tip Of The WeekSat, 30 Jan 2010 02:58:08 -0700