Poker News
Staying Ahead of the Game
By Poker Man
Feb 22, 2009

Poker is a game of strategy and skill. Managing your bankroll is an important part of your strategy to stay in the game. A lot of players get away with bankrolling 200 times their maximum bet. Experts recommend keeping the minimum at 500 times their maximum bet. This will keep your game afloat even if you have a run of bad luck. Otherwise, the dwindling bankroll will affect your confidence and in turn affect your game.

Experts also recommend spending only up to 20% of one’s bankroll per day, keeping you in the game for a longer stretch. About 50 hands per session are recommended. Playing non-stop will affect your energy levels and reduce your concentration. To protect a dwindling bankroll from reducing any further, players are advised to reduce their limit and move to tables where their opponents play a weaker game.

Staying ahead of the game requires your full attention. You need to be listening to your opponents and constantly aware of your surroundings. Players can give away clues by their behavior or passing conversation. For example, one poker expert, Howard Lederer, had the following experience. “It was the Bellagio $15K WPT poker tournament. The blinds were $4K-$8K and I was in the big blind. A player who'd been playing very tight so far opened the pot from an early position for $25K. The small blind called and I looked down at 9-9. I often re-raise with this hand, but this seemed like a good time to just call. The flop was 8s 5s 3c. The small blind checked and, with about $275K in front of me and $100K in the pot, I continued playing cautiously and checked. The opener checked, too. The turn was (8s 5s 3c) 6c and the small blind checked. I felt like I must have the best hand, so I bet $50K. I was very surprised when the original opener raised all-in for a total of $175K. The small blind folded and now I had a big $125K decision to make. If I call and win, I have $550K and am in great shape. If I call and lose I'm in real trouble.

“I didn't think he had a big hand, but it didn't seem like a very good bluffing situation either. The board looked really dangerous. Plus, I hadn't seen this player get out of line at all. But then I remembered a comment he had made to his neighbor about ten minutes earlier. He had hardly played a hand for about an hour, and said to the guy next him that his cards had been so bad, it would have been just as well if he had stayed in his room after the last break. Remembering that comment, I felt there was a good chance that he was frustrated. With that factored in, I made the call. He turned over the Kd-Qd, and with a 2 on the river, I won a key hand that put me in great shape in a big tournament. If I had been listening to music [or otherwise distracted], I don't think I could have made the call.”

Ben Roberts, professional poker player, encourages new players, saying, “Remember, successful people fail more often than unsuccessful people. Successful people try new things, fall down, pick themselves up, and try again. So, if your first attempt to move up to a higher stakes game falls short of your expectations, don't despair. Look at your play and the play of your opponents, regroup, and try again. The experience will be worth it.”

A good strategy employed by the pros is in not playing too many hands or in overvaluing suited hands. This is a common error among beginners. Two cards of the same suit will only flop a flush or a flush draw about 12% of the time. These odds are too low to take a risk on every single time.

When following the pros or any particular favorite that you may have, remember to keep an open mind about their reasons for making certain plays. Poker being a game of bluff, not all their moves and bidding behavior will be a reflection of the cards they hold but rather a reflection of whom they’re playing against. Imitating a player is far less successful than understanding the strategies of good poker. Besides, in imitating someone else, you run the risk of simultaneously adopting his errors or weaknesses.

An intrinsic part of staying ahead is not beating yourself up when you make a mistake. The pros make mistakes all the time, but they’re good enough to cover them up or the mistakes are simply small ones that go by unnoticed (except perhaps to other pros). A little objectivity can go a long way. "To improve, you have to know you're making mistakes," Chris Ferguson said. "There are a lot of hands I don't know how to play. There are a lot of situations I don't know how to handle. If I thought I knew everything, I'd never improve."

Even Howard Lederer believes, "To become a pro or a really good player, you have to become brutally objective about your game. If you aren't, you won't make the changes and improvements you need."

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