Sunday, September 5, 2010

Ace king

Hey everyone and welcome back again and thanks for reading my blog. I would like to talk about ace king today. A lot of people seem to hate getting ace king because they lose so much with it but people forget how much they play ace king. If you played 6 7 as much as ace king you more then likely would hate 6 7 the same if not worse. I was dealing today when I deal a player ace king at a 2-5 no-limit hold 'em game and in the end he lost the hand but I want to talk about it because after the hand was done he started bitching about the hand and also stated how ace king sucks. As a dealer I can't tell a player to "shut up" or "you played that hand so bad" well I could tell them that but then I would more then likely be looking for another job. But back to the hand their are million ways to play any given hand and any given way is right at some point in time or another but I will tell you how I like to play this hand and maybe what that player could have done to win the hand. I will start with how I like to play ace king, In any spot I like to raise with ace king if their hasn't been a raise so far but depending on my spot (and game) I like to raise different amounts but one amount I Nemertea like to raise is "all-in" (unless I'm super low stack), now the reason for that is ace king is not a made hand and on top of that you are limited to the hands you can make with it. No matter how hard you try you will only be able to make a straight to the ace with this hand (unless it comes out on the board) so because of the limitations of this hand I always want to play this hand to get two points, 1 is to make people know I have a hand and 2 to try and get information from them. I know that seems very obvious but many people lose sight of this because they feel this is the best hand at the time and that ace king should beat ace queen or anything lower. Now after my raise 8 out of 10 times people will fold to me and I win the hand and it's on to the next and even tho I don't win much I still win something and a plus is ALWAY better then a lost no matter how much or little you get. Now when it happens that someone or more call me I quickly figure out why they called. Now their are 4 main reason for this call/calls, 1 they have a better hand, 2 they have odds to call, 3 they feel they have live cards and 4 they are catching cards. Figuring out why they call is very important and can help you figure out your next move. If they have a better hand then you then you need to know how to let your hand go since ace king only wins about 15% of the time when it goes to the end the odds aren't in your favor (their are times of course you will out draw them but if you count on that you can count you money will be gone), if they have the odds to call then you very quickly need to figure out how to get them out of the hand because the likelihood of them catching gets higher and higher depending on how many are in and how far into the hand you are, so figure out if you can get them out and how much it will cost and do it on the flop don't let them have the odds to call or price them in since more times then not they will beat you. If they feel like they are live this is the best for you because this is the one that you can make the most money for the least amount of risk. Now the hardest to figure out is when they are catching since you will have a hard time figuring out what they have and more then likely they will have a much weaker hand that you will not put them on till it's to late, the best I can say with this one is check it out if possible unless you feel like you can get them out of it but most of the time if they are catching they will call most of your bets and catch on the river and just put you on tilt. The hand that I dealt today the guy was going up against the guy catching everything and on the flop knew that guy got three of a kind and the guy with ace king kept calling since he couldn't let it go but on top of that he never raise pre flop so he let the guy come in afro cheap to catch when if he raise 4 times the blind that guy would have gone out. Well this one has gone on long enough thank you for reading and remember to tip your dealers

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Read more then my blog

Hey everyone and thanks for coming back to my blog. In this post I want to talk a bit about reading your opponents. In poker their is so much to take in that I feel people lose sight of any tales your opponents might give and of all the things to count to figure out how to play your hand I feel reading your opponent is the most important. With so many people playing online where no one can see your physical tales they don't think of trying to hide them so when these online players come to play poker at any card room around the world they give so many tales that anyone half way good at reading a player will be able to figure out their hands and adjust to it to make the right call or fold, then later those online players wonder why they lost all their money or why that guy in the 3 seat called with 8 6 off suit and took all his money. I'm sure some of you are thinking no one should be playing 8 6 off, 9 5 or whatever other bad hand you can think off but if you can read your opponents hand and you figured that player has Jack 10 suited and the flop comes out 6 6 4 or whatever other bad flop then you know that people has nothing and you can get that player off the hand or try to trap them. It also goes the other way where if you know they have that Jack 10 suited and the flop comes out 7 8 9 you know to lay it down when that player tries to get any more money from you. Everyone gives out some tales and it's up to you to figure them out to make the best plays. Alright for now I will leave the rest of this open for you to think about and in a later post I will say more about reading opponents till then let me again thank you for reading my blog and remember to tip your dealers.