How to Play the Early Stages of Turbo MTTs

When playing a turbo Multi-Table Tournament online, one of the biggest mistakes you can make is overcompensating for the fact that it’s a turbo by playing too fast and loose during the first several rounds. Because the levels are shorter and the starting stacks smaller, you’ll see players rushing to get all their chips into the pot with a hand like A-9 or pocket 5s. Since these tournaments actually play like normal tournaments during the first few levels, it’s important to remain patient and wait for big hands.

In the first 15 or 20 minutes of a turbo tournament you should play the same way you would in the first hour or hour and a half of a regular tournament. You should be looking to play quality hands aggressively from late position, but if you meet any resistance you need to pull back. At this point in the tournament it’s not worth losing all your chips with A-J offsuit or pocket 5s if an opponent comes over the top of your raise.

There’s also very little point in trying to steal the blinds in the early stages because they’re so small relative to the size of the starting chip stacks. Stealing the blinds becomes much more important in the later rounds after the antes have kicked in. The other argument against trying to steal the blinds early on is that you’re more likely than usual to get called because players tend to play faster in turbos. The big blind will be looking for a reason to call your raise from late position, and he might even make a move, pushing all in with a marginal hand. As a result, trying to steal the blinds becomes much less profitable than usual.

What you should be looking for in the early stages are opportunities to play small hands that could become big hands. When you’re in good position, you should be looking to see as many flops as possible with small pocket pairs and suited connectors because these are the types of hands that can win big pots. If I have a hand like pocket 6s, I’ll rarely fold to a raise before the flop because I know that one time in eight I’ll catch a 6 on the flop and double up off a player who can’t let go of his big pair.

If you do choose to call a raise before the flop with a small pocket pair, it’s important that you make sure your opponent has a large enough chip stack to justify the eight-to-one odds of you hitting a set. Ideally, you should be looking to make this call against a player who has at least twenty times the size of the preflop raise. If your opponent only has five times the size of the raise in his chip stack, you can’t win enough to make the call mathematically correct.

Another important difference between turbo and regular tournaments is that in a regular tournament I’ll be a little more aggressive in the early stages, trying to project a certain image. I’ll often raise with hands like J-9 suited or Q-8 suited in late position, but that tactic doesn’t work as well in turbo tournaments. In turbos I’ll often pass up opportunities to make an opening raise with these sorts of hands because I don’t want to put myself in the difficult position of having to play a big pot with such a weak hand.

Let your opponents be the ones to overplay their weak hands early on because they almost certainly will. They’ll raise or call raises before the flop with hands like pocket fours, and even if the flop comes Q-J-7 they’ll keep on pushing. Such players also tend to overplay strong hands like A-K. After raising before the flop with that hand, many players will refuse to let it go after getting check-raised on a flop like J-7-4. Even though they’re obviously behind, they’ll call a big bet, hoping to catch an Ace or King on the turn.

Some players will even push all their chips into the middle in this situation. All they have are two overcards, but I guess they figure that after raising before the flop and betting on the flop they’ve already invested a healthy chunk of their chip stack and they might as well go all the way with the hand. They’re impatient because of the nature of turbo tournaments − starting with smaller chip stacks and playing quicker levels − but this is obviously a huge mistake.

The most important thing to remember in the early stages of an online turbo tournament is stay patient and wait for big hands. Too many players overcompensate for the fact that it’s a turbo and make foolish moves that cost them half their stacks. Don’t be one of those players.

The Rebuy Tournament Game Plan

Going into any rebuy tournament, you should know before the first cards are dealt how much money you’re willing to invest. Whether you’re playing with a single bullet (not planning to rebuy at all), enough money to rebuy 50 times, or somewhere in between, you should have a number in your mind. You need to know from the start how many risks you can afford to take, and play accordingly.

For me personally, I don’t believe in playing with a single bullet or with unlimited ammo. If you’re only planning on making one buy-in, then why not play a regular No-Limit Hold ’em tournament? Playing a rebuy tournament with only one bullet, you have no safety net and you’re giving the other players a significant edge over you because they’re able to exploit your reluctance to gamble.

If you’re pushing your stack in over and over, looking to accumulate chips and willing to go broke repeatedly, there’s a certain amount of upside to that, but I don’t believe it’s the best expected value play. Yes, that maniacal approach can sometimes get you into the post-rebuy period with a large chip stack, which of course provides an edge for the rest of the tournament. The problem is that if you’ve spent something like $25,000 in a $1,000 buy-in tournament, you have to finish that much higher in the money to come out ahead. A lot of times when you’re rebuying that many times, just making the money doesn’t cover how much you’ve invested into the tournament.

My personal rule of thumb is that I like to be willing to invest in the tournament in accordance to the payout amounts. I don’t ever want to get to the point where I’m investing significantly more money than the lowest money place pays. So in a $1,000 rebuy tournament, I’m willing to put about $8,000 into it. Some days, it’s just not your day, the cards aren’t falling your way and you have to leave and come back and play another day. It’s foolish to sit there and keep putting your stack in the middle when you have no edge and often times you’re up against a better hand.

When you’re playing this middle-of-the-road strategy, it’s important to identify the maniacal players from the outset because they’re going to be very dangerous, but they’re also going to provide you with your best opportunities to chip up. These players are actually the prime reason to play in a rebuy tournament, because you can feast on them. They’re going to open with all types of hands from all different positions, so you can call with marginal hands in position such as 10-9 suited, 8-7 suited, 3-4 suited, even one-gappers such as 6-8 suited. I also want to put a lot of pressure on this type of player before the flop if I have a big hand like Aces, Kings, or Queens, simply because this is the type of player who’s really willing to gamble and might just go ahead and ship the rest of his stack in right there.

In the last 10 to 15 minutes of the rebuy period, if you’ve been able to acquire a stack, this is a critical time in the tournament to play smart. If the hyper-aggressive players don’t have a lot of chips, they’re going to be pushing it all in almost every hand to give themselves a shot at a big stack heading into the post-rebuy period. If you have an edge in a given hand against these guys, use it, but you don’t want to gamble too much. Remember that you’ve acquired a stack now and it’s your goal to maintain that stack in and after the rebuy period.

The Pros and Cons of Being Active Early

Deciding how active you want to be at the beginning of a tournament depends heavily on what type of tournament you’re playing in. If it’s a standard Sit & Go, I always recommend playing tight and conserving chips early. If it’s a Multi-Table Tournament or a Shootout Tournament then you should consider a more active style in the early phase.

Part of the goal in doing this is to accumulate chips. But another part of the goal is to establish an image that will help get you chips later. It can be a rewarding way to play, but you need to understand that there’s also a downside to the image this type of play will create.

When you put constant pressure on other players, it’s eventually going to make them fight back. You don’t have to raise large amounts and you don’t have to get involved in huge pots, but by raising with a lot of hands, your opponents are going to play back at you with a wider and wider range of hands. They’re going to start calling and three-betting with more marginal hands, and that’s going to open them up and make them susceptible to giving you their chips more often.

If you’re looking to accumulate chips, you don’t want your table locked down in super-tight mode. You don’t want to have to grind out a few chips every orbit – you want to get into your opponents’ heads and provoke them into spewing chips. You’ll find that once one player at the table does it, it tends to have a domino effect and lead other people to start making mistakes.

The downside, however, is that your bluffs won’t work very often, and that’s something you have to be aware of. For example, let’s say I’ve been playing a lot of pots and developed a loose image in a six-handed table, and I’m dealt A-Q suited under the gun. That’s a good hand at a full table, and it’s even better six-handed. So I make a pot-sized raise, and the big blind calls. The flop is J-10-6, which isn’t exactly a hit for me, but it isn’t a total miss; I have a straight draw and two over cards. I’m going to make a normal continuation bet and I figure my opponent can’t call me without a decent hand. In this case, I bet, he calls and the turn is a three, so I decide to give it one more shot and raise my bet a little bit because I want him to fold. Instead, he calls.

A four now falls on the river. I didn’t hit anything and he’s clearly shown that he’s ready to call anything; I can’t expect to bet him off the hand. In my mind, I’m putting him on a hand possibly as weak as 10-2, but I don’t think I can get him to lay that down, so I check, give up the pot and he wins with 6-7.

Of course I’m going to be a little frustrated to learn that he called twice with third pair. He had to have put me on A-K or A-Q or thought I was raising under the gun with rags and, the truth is, people will begin to think that way because I’ve raised a lot of pots. Because of this, people are going to start calling me extremely light.

In the short-term, that can be a bad thing; but in the long-term, it should be good. If the same hand happens later but I have A-J or Aces or Kings, or even some trash hand that connects, I’m going to get paid off.

This is why the positives of playing an active style early ultimately outweigh the negatives. Even if you lose a pot because your image keeps people hanging around, it can set you up to win an even bigger pot later on.

Semi-Bluffing

The semi-bluff is one of the most powerful weapons in any poker player’s arsenal. If there’s a decent chance you can steal a pot by semi-bluffing, you should usually take it. But, as with any play you make at the table, the semi-bluff is always most effective when you use it at the correct time in the correct situation. Semi-bluff too much and your opponents will know when you’re on the draw; semi-bluff too little and your opponents will know to fold whenever you bet. The key to semi-bluffing is to always mix things up and never become too predictable with your betting patterns.

Let’s say that you’ve flopped the nut flush draw and are pretty certain your opponent has connected with the flop in some way, be it top pair or maybe even a set. A lot of players like to check-raise as a semi-bluff in this spot. There are a couple of problems with this play: first, if you always check-raise in this spot then your opponent will be able to put you on a draw very easily. Second, if your opponent really does have a hand, there’s no need to check-raise here because there’s no way he’s folding and there’s a good chance he’ll pay you off anyway if you hit your hand.

A better move in this spot might be not semi-bluffing and just calling instead. This way, if you hit your flush on the turn, your options are wide open – checking, calling or raising are all viable plays − and your opponent won’t be able to put you on a hand quite as easily. By not semi-bluffing, you increase your chances of winning a bigger pot when your opponent actually has a strong hand. There are players out there who’ll assume you’re not on the draw if you don’t semi-bluff, so use that to your advantage.

Now, if you don’t think that your opponent has a strong hand or your draw isn’t that strong (say a low flush draw), this is the perfect time for a semi-bluff. The semi-bluff should be used as a tool to steal pots when the opportunity arises, not as a means of building big pots.

Another good way to mix up your semi-bluffing game plan is to wait until the turn to semi-bluff rather than always doing it on the flop. This can be a dangerous play because you’ve only got one card to come on the turn and you’re not getting the same odds. But it also means that your opponent is less likely to think that you’re semi-bluffing and put you on the draw. It looks pretty strong if you call on the flop and then raise on the turn; your opponent might think you’ve flopped the nuts and throw away a pretty strong hand.

Another advantage to semi-bluffing on the turn rather than the flop is that you could pick up additional outs on the turn. Say you have a gut-shot straight draw on the flop and then pick up a flush draw on the turn. You’ve just gone from four outs to about 12, which might be worth a shot at taking down the pot right then and there. A lot of players will also have trouble putting you on the flush draw in this spot; it’s just harder to see that flush draw on the turn than it is on the flop.

Once again, the key to a good semi-bluff is picking the right spot to pull it off. Choose poorly and you could stand to lose a good portion of your stack; choose well and you could throw your opponents off balance and hit them where it hurts when you make your hand.

Playing Fifth Street in Seven-Card Stud

Fifth Street is the big decision point in Seven-Card Stud because that’s the critical juncture in the hand when you have to put in your first big bet. While it’s nice to have a made hand at this point, you don’t always need one to put in a raise on Fifth Street. If you have a big draw, that can be enough to warrant raising your opponent. Some players don’t think like this, and I believe that’s a costly mistake.

Here’s an example of a situation where I believe raising with a draw is the correct play. Let’s say your opponent is showing an Ace, and you have a 7 of diamonds up and a 6 and 7 of spades in the hole, giving you a pair of 7s. You and your opponent are the only players involved in the hand, and he opens with a raise. You call.

On the turn your opponent catches an offsuit Jack and bets. You catch the 9 of spades. You have a pretty nice hand at this point. Not only do you have a pair of 7s, but you also have three cards to a flush and three cards to a straight so there are a lot of cards you can catch that will give you a big draw. You definitely want to call in this spot.

On Fifth Street your opponent catches a 6 so now he has an Ace, Jack, and 6 showing. You catch the deuce of spades, which is a very interesting card. You now have a pair of 7s and four spades to a flush, but your opponent is unaware of how strong you are because one of your 7s and two of your spades are hidden.

Your opponent leads out with a bet once again. Now here’s the question. Should you simply call or should you raise? Even if your opponent has two Aces, I would prefer to have two 7s and four spades in this situation so you should be aggressive and put in a raise. You should do this for a couple of reasons. First, even if he does have a pair of Aces, you’re still the favorite. You are about a 58 percent favorite to win the hand so you’re getting the best of it right now.

The other reason you should raise is that it will get you a free card if you fail to hit your draw. Let’s say you go ahead and raise on Fifth Street, and your opponent calls. Since he called your raise, you can be pretty certain he has a pair that can beat your 7s. Then on Sixth Street he catches a 4 and you catch the 3 of diamonds, a card that doesn’t help your hand at all.

If your opponent is a weak player, he is probably going to check it to you because he’s going to be scared of that raise you put in on Fifth Street. If he does in fact check, then you succeeded in accomplishing exactly what you set out to do. You got extra money into the pot on Fifth Street when you had the best of it, and now that you missed your draw and don’t have the best of it anymore you’re happy to get a free card. Now you have one more shot at drawing out on him.

This is a clear example of why it pays to be aggressive on Fifth Street in Seven-Card Stud. Some players would just call in this situation, but I think that’s a big mistake. Being aggressive and sticking in a raise has two clear advantages over simply calling. It will get more money into the pot those times you do make your hand, and it will get you a free card those times you don’t. The bottom line is that you need to be aggressive when playing Seven-Card Stud because it’s the aggressive player who usually wins.

Finding the Right Game and the Right Mindset

For me, poker is a game that is meant to be played joyfully, and the path to playing the game joyfully begins with finding the game that’s right for you and entering it in the right frame of mind.

If you’re going to be an emotional prisoner when it comes to your wins and losses, you won’t play at your best. You need to play with patience, joy and a certain amount of indifference towards winning and losing. You need to be cool, calm, collected and happy. It’s not about your skill level – that’s something you can improve on continuously. It’s about how you feel, as this affects the moves you make more than your skill or playing style.

Once you’ve attained the right mindset, you can proceed to finding the right game. I believe in watching a game for a while before you enter it. This gives you an advantage over your opponents because you can pick up on their tendencies. If you observe the way they play, you can adjust accordingly before they’ve had a chance to adjust to you.

This ties in directly to the concept of playing with joy, because experiencing different games and different opponents is what I think makes the game of poker so wonderful. Every time I wake up in my hotel room, ready to start a new day at the World Series of Poker, I’m excited. I know it is going to be different from the game I had yesterday—and different from every game I’ve ever had, really.

Another beautiful element of the game that I really appreciate is the way it provides me with fresh stimulation. Many people are under the mistaken impression that once you get used to playing the game, it becomes monotonous. This kind of attitude comes from people who are not true poker players. True poker players appreciate the diversity, the changes and the differences from day to day.

Ultimately, finding the right game comes down to finding the highest stakes at which you will be consistently successful. If you’re a beginning player who’s becoming a winning player, you’ll want to step outside your comfort zone and move up in stakes since that’s the only way to increase your earnings. It’s fairly self-explanatory that the higher the games you play, the more you will win; but that’s only if the players you are up against are worse than you. Remember, there’s not much point in being the 9th best player in the world if you only play against the top eight.

Once you’ve found your game, just remember that whenever you’re feeling good, you should go with the flow and play on, and whenever you’re not, you should stop. Either way, you must keep an even temper. When things go right for you, it’s great. When things don’t go right for you, as long as you did your best and you made your best decisions, you can still feel happy about your game. Take your losses gracefully. When you can take your losses well – when your losses and wins have the same meaning to you – then you have the chance to become a great player as opposed to just a good one. Poker is supposed to be a journey of joy, and anything that is a departure from that, is off your path.

Pre-Game Online Tells

When most poker players think about tells, they visualize physical actions that occur at the table. For example, the way an opponent’s hands start shaking whenever he has the nuts or the way he handles his chips in certain situations. Online players don’t have this sort of information to work with, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t tells in online play. There’s actually a great deal of information that an observant player can pick up on, and much of it can be discovered before you even sit down at a table. I call these important first impressions “pre-game tells.”

One of the most important pre-game tells is the size of your opponent’s buy-in. Whenever I sit down at a table, the first thing I look at is how much my opponents have bought in for in relation to the maximum amount allowed at that table. Most advanced players tend to buy in for as close to the table maximum as possible. They prefer to have as many chips on the table as they can, which gives them plenty of ammunition for bullying their opponents, bluffing, and semi-bluffing.

Weaker and inexperienced players are more inclined to buy in for a much smaller amount, often closer to the table minimum. By buying in short, weaker players are hoping to protect themselves from suffering a huge loss. What they don’t realize is that the more experienced players at the table are going to pick up on this sign of weakness. When I’m selecting a table, these are the types of players I’m looking to sit next to because they generally play scared.  Be careful, though, because there are players who buy in for less than the table maximum that are actually winning players.

When you’re playing on Full Tilt Poker, you can also gauge how experienced your opponents are by simply looking around the table and observing if any of the players possess an Iron Man chip. This chip is awarded to players who play a certain amount of hands each day, in effect rewarding them for being grinders. Because these players play so often, they have spent many hours working on their games and they tend to be some of the better players on the site.  If you are able to earn an Iron Man chip yourself, you may consider removing the icon so you don’t advertise that you are a serious player.

Another way to find more information about the players sitting at your table is to use Full Tilt Poker’s “Find a Player” feature. Simply click on the “Requests” tab in the lobby, select “Find a Player” and then type in your opponents’ screen names. By doing this, you can find out how many tables each of your opponents is sitting at, which can be an extremely telling bit of information. If one of your opponents is multi-tabling, playing at four or more tables at once, he will generally be a solid player, and quite often you will find that players who play this many tables at once are professionals.

When you add all this information together, it can tell you a great deal about a certain player’s level of experience. If the player you’re interested in bought in for the maximum amount, is sporting an Iron Man chip next to his avatar and is playing at eight tables at once, all signs point towards him being a very solid player, which is something you should keep in mind when you are playing a pot against this player. If most of the table fits this description, you might even consider selecting a different table to play at. On the other hand, if a player bought in for half of the maximum buy-in, doesn’t have an Iron Man Chip, and is only playing at one table, chances are he’s an inexperienced player and you’ll probably want to play as many pots with him as you can.

Because all of this information can be gleaned before you even play a single hand, you would be wise to use it when deciding which table you want to play at. Doing this will greatly increase your chances of having a winning session.

Playing a Medium Stack in Early Position

For obvious reasons, we’d all rather have a medium stack than a short stack. But there is one advantage to being short-stacked: your decisions are easy. With a medium stack, almost every decision you make is complicated and almost every move is awkward.

A medium stack is defined as when you have about 30-40 big blinds, and learning how to play it is absolutely vital to tournament success. In most tournaments, you’ll have a stack that size from about the time half of the field has been eliminated all the way to the final table.

This means you’ll potentially spend up to half of your tournament in a position where every pot you play is pivotal and every decision is tricky. You have far too many chips just to open-shove, like you would with a smaller stack, and if you open for a standard raise, that’s already close to 10 percent of your stack that you’re putting at risk. So you can’t play too loose.

That said, you have to keep things in perspective: if you play too tight, you’ll quickly find yourself a short stack because of the rising antes and blinds. This can get even more complicated if you’re at a table with a lot of aggressive players; the temptation will be to play extra tight so you don’t waste chips raising and then folding. Always keep in mind that there will be times when you’ll have to take risks because the blinds and antes you can win by open-raising will help keep you afloat.

Focusing purely on the challenge of playing a medium stack in early position, my advice is that you should mostly be playing hands that you’re willing to play for your entire stack: if you’ve got pocket Tens or higher or even A-K, you want to try to get it all in. While you can expand this range to include pocket 8s and 9s, A-Q, A-Js or K-Qs, these are hands that you might want to get away from if you’re re-raised by a solid player.

Let’s say blinds are 250/500, I have 15,000 in my stack, and I’m dealt pocket Jacks. If I make a standard raise to 1,500, and a player in late position re-raises to 4,500, I’m just going to go ahead and shove all of my money in and hope for the best. I really can’t afford to be throwing those hands away with that sized stack.

If the situation is identical but I get smooth-called and the flop doesn’t scare me – something like 9-7-4 rainbow – I’m going to bet the flop and continue betting, raising or check-raising until I’m all in no matter what my opponent does. Without a scare card on board, you really can’t get away from the hand. You also don’t want to give free cards when the pot is already sizeable and any Ace or King could freeze you.

An exception to following through like that comes if I’m up against an aggressive player. Say I have pocket Jacks and make a standard pre-flop raise, an opponent in late position calls, and the flop comes Q-7-4 rainbow. Odds are that my Jacks are still the best hand, so I have to take my chances and proceed as if they are. But since my opponent is aggressive, I’ll check to him, and if he bets, I’ll check-raise him all-in. I’m giving him a chance to bluff, then protecting my hand with a big all-in bet if he does bluff. That will often work better than throwing out a continuation bet, which could make him fold any hand worse than mine. It’s also reasonable to make this play with A-A, A-Q or as a bluff with A-K.

Playing a medium stack in later positions is a different proposition. You’ll often have to deal with a raise from an early-position player, and if you don’t, the hand range you can open with is considerably wider.

But in early position, a tight-aggressive approach is definitely your best bet. Be careful about which hands you play, but once you decide to play a hand, be prepared to push with it.

Hand Coordination

Hand coordination is the relative strength of your hand compared to your opponents’ hand, and it’s probably the single biggest factor determining whether you have a good or bad session playing poker. If it’s working in your favor, whenever you flop a monster, one of your opponents will also make a big hand, just not quite as big as yours. In this situation, playing your hand as fast as possible usually gives you the best chance to make the most money.

Say you’re playing Hold ‘em and you’re in a four-way pot, the board comes 9-9-4, and you have pocket fours. You want to play this hand fast for two reasons. The first is that you’re hoping one of your opponents has a 9. If so, he might raise you, allowing you to reraise him. Ideally, he’ll call, then call you again on the turn and the river, and you’ll make a lot of money.

The other reason you want to play this hand fast is that, if you check, it’s quite possible your opponents will also check. Then, if the turn brings a 6 and one of your opponents has pocket sixes and makes a bigger full house, you’re going to lose a huge amount of money. Giving a free card and losing an enormous pot when you could have won a small pot (if only you’d bet) is one of the biggest mistakes you can make in poker.

Now let’s say the flop comes K-J-J, and you have pocket kings. You’re not as likely to cost yourself your entire stack by slowplaying in this situation. It’s extremely unlikely that your opponent is going to be behind on the flop and yet make a hand on the turn that beats you, but I still think you should play it fast. You’ll win more money by betting the whole way because any player holding a jack is, at the very least, going to call you down, and he might even raise you. On the flop you just have to put out the line and hope that one of your opponents has a jack, or better yet, K-J.

If you play it slow in this situation, you’re giving away the strength of your hand. If you check on the flop with the idea of check-raising, then when you do put in the raise you’re telling your opponent you’ve made a huge hand and are giving him the opportunity to lay down a jack. You’ll make far more money by simply betting the whole way.

However, slowplaying a monster is occasionally the better play. Suppose you raise from middle position with A-Q of hearts, the button and the big blind both call, and the flop comes 6-7-2, all hearts. If the big blind checks, you should check too. If the button bets, you can then raise because he’s either buffing, in which case you’re not going to win any more money from him, or he’s also flopped a flush, in which case you want to get your money into the pot as quickly as possible in hopes of winning his entire stack, or he’s flopped a set, in which case he’ll call your check-raise on the flop and he’ll call a big bet on the turn and he might even call a big bet on the river.

If the board pairs on the turn, you should still bet. It’s such a draw heavy board that your opponent might think you only have the ace of hearts in your hand, or the ace of hearts and a pair, or the ace of hearts and another ace. There are a lot of hands he could put you on in this spot besides the nut flush so, even if the board pairs, you should keep betting for value, hoping to get called by a worse hand.

If you bet the turn and your opponent puts in a stiff raise, then you should reevaluate. If you bet the turn and he calls and you bet the river and he raises, then you should fold because you can credibly put him on a full house.

Because hand coordination plays such an important role in determining your long-term success, you need to make as much money as you possibly can when it’s working in your favor, and one of the best ways of doing that is playing fast after you flop a big hand.

Climbing on the HORSE

I’m aware that most poker players know me primarily as a poker commentator on shows like NBC’s “Poker After Dark” and “National Heads-Up Poker Championship”, but I also happen to be a pretty serious Limit Hold ‘em and mixed game player. I particularly enjoy HORSE, so I thought I’d give one quick tip on each of the five games to help players who are beginning to explore this challenging format.

Hold ‘em: Because HORSE involves three Stud games and only two flop games, most HORSE players have solid Stud backgrounds as opposed to flop-game backgrounds. As such, they tend not to play the Hold ‘em round as well. When you’ve identified who the softer flop-game players are, try to attack their blinds more than the average player and with a wider range of hands. They’ll often either lay down preflop, or check-fold if they call and miss the flop – something more experienced Hold ‘em players are much less likely to do. Playing aggressively against these opponents and exploiting their weak-tight play is profitable.

Omaha Hi/Lo: What you want in split-pot games are situations involving three or more players (this applies to Stud Hi/Lo as well). If you’re going to split the pot, you don’t want to split just your money and what the guy you played against put in; you want to split someone else’s money. That’s the only way you’re going to make a real profit without scooping. Try limping in as opposed to raising with A-2-X-X in ring games when the Ace is unsuited and/or your other two cards are disconnected (e.g. A-2-7-K offsuit). In short-handed games or in late position it’s a different story, but mixing up the way you play A-2 preflop can help to conceal your hand, and allow for easy folds on high-card flops. Also, avoid mid-range pairs. They play awful, and even when you hit a set you’ll often be outdrawn by straight and flush draws or just hanging on for only half the pot.

I’ll give you an example from a HORSE game on Full Tilt Poker where I had a potentially huge hand and wanted to invite more people into the pot. I had Ah-4h-7d-6c. I limped from middle position, there was a raise from the small blind, I called, and we saw the flop four-handed. The flop came 2h-3h-Kc, a huge flop that gave me the nut low-draw, a nut flush-draw, and a gut-shot nut straight draw. The small blind bet and the guy to my right folded. This flop was too big to raise, so I called, hoping the player on the button would come along. If I hit my hand, I wanted more players in the pot. As it turned out the button raised, the small blind called, and being 3 handed, it made sense for me to re-raise such a big draw, so I did and both of my opponents called.

The turn was a blank high card and we checked around, (something the 3rd bet I put in on the flop likely allowed to happen), but the river was my dream card, the 6h, giving me the nut low and the nut flush which, with no pair on board, was the nut high as well. I got all sorts of action from both players and we eventually capped the pot. The button held a weaker flush, and the small blind just had A-4 to halve the low, so I won three-quarters of a large pot. As a beginner in Omaha Hi/Lo, in a multi-way pot you should have at least a reasonable shot at winning both the high and low if you’re going to do any raising on the river. Otherwise even with the nut Hi or Lo, just bet and then call if raised to prevent being quartered.

Razz: My key Razz advice is not to overplay any hand initially and not chase. Even when you have A-2-3 to start, the best possible hand, I favor raising and only calling if someone does any re-raising (which also helps conceal your starting hand). Being a favorite on 3rd street doesn’t mean too much in Razz because what’s most important is hitting a better 4th street card than your opponent and playing the strength of your board. Don’t be afraid to check-fold marginal low draws on 4th street if you hit a brick and your opponent is showing two cards lower than your highest card. (e.g. your hole cards are 2-8 and your board is 6-K while your opponent shows 7-6) You’ll generally be playing catch-up for at least 2 streets in these spots, and that’s only if your opponent doesn’t improve.

Stud Hi: Don’t chase in Stud when you see an open pair that’s bigger than your pair unless you’ve got some sort of strong draw to go with the pair (e.g. 89TJJ vs open KK). Without the draw there are simply too many times where if you can’t beat the open pair, you make two pair and end up paying your opponent off because you’re up against a better two pair or of course trips. Pay attention to your opponent’s “door” or 3rd street up card as well, as this will help you read his hole cards based on possible starting hands – generally a split pair, a three-card straight or a three-card flush – and the action as the hand develops.

Stud Hi/Lo: This is the game that beginners play worse than any other. And the biggest mistake they can make is playing split pairs between 9s and Kings in ring games (short-handed is a bit more flexible), because in these situations they already have at least two cards that aren’t going to contribute to making a low (8 or better qualifier), and will likely be drawing only to the high side of the pot. When you’re drawing to the low end, you’re freerolling towards backing into a high. If you have A-2-4-7, you can miss the low and turn into 2 pair, trips, a flush or – ideally – make a low and have a straight or one of the aforementioned high hands to go with it. Try to avoid hands that only have the potential to take the high side of the pot.

On the whole, I’ve found that HORSE games tend to be pretty profitable because there aren’t too many people out there who can play all the games well. So if you practice and become proficient at all five games, you’ll be a big favorite.