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Ultimate-Bet Poker - Poker Tournament Strategy
Match Play for Fun and Profit - Part 1: Luck Sucks
by John Vorhaus
I don't like luck. I don't like it when the other guy gets it, but then
again, I don't much like having to rely on it myself. Poker, it's always seemed
to me, would be pure bliss if only luck didn't enter into it at all. Of course
we know that this can never be because it's luck that keeps the, uhm...
"weaker-minded enthusiasts" coming back for more. Still, I could never help thinking that poker would be perfect if I could take the luck out of it, while leaving the appearance of luck in place.
Then I discovered one-on-one online Texas hold'em tournaments, and I'm here to tell you that these sitngo beauties are a skilled player's paradise. They don't utterly remove luck from the equation, but they minimize it greatly, and if you follow the steps I outline in this series of articles, you can minimize it even more.
It's gonna be a long series, and I'll tell you why: because playing one-on-one requires a retooling and a rethinking of many or most of your basic poker strategies. It requires that you think of the contest more like a chess match than a poker game, and appreciate that, like chess, heads-up tournaments have levels and layers of thought which will take some time to sort through, analyze, and understand.
But that's okay, 'cause I'm on a year's contract and you, well, you've got all the time in the world.
Let me start you off with a couple of shocking revelations:
- YOU'RE AFRAID TO PLAY HEADS UP
- YOU SHOULDN'T BE
WHY YOU'RE AFRAID: Your fear of playing one-on-one goes back to your earliest days in poker when most of the people you played against were, in fact, a whole lot better than you. Being less skilled than your foes, you found safety in numbers. You played hit-to-win poker, looking to call along into volume pots and win lots of chips when the cards made you an offer you couldn't refuse.
Maybe you dabbled in short-handed games or one-on-one contests and found that the other guy - that rapscallion! - always seemed to have you leaning the wrong way, calling when you should raise, folding when you should call, what-have-you. So you retreated to the safety of your ten-handed ring game, your volume pots, and what you hoped would be your fair share of the luck. And there you've stayed, stuck. Stuck in luck.
WHY YOU SHOULDN'T BE AFRAID: Your rookie days were a long time ago. You've played about six zillion hands of online poker since then. You've stopped fretting over raises and reraises, wins and losses. You've got your feet under you and your head in the game. Now you find the thing that frustrates you most is when the luck goes against you... when you pick up pocket aces in a ten-handed ring game, go to war against a full complement of Cally Wallies, and get called down (and beaten) by some ridiculous cheese.
Leave the cheese! Go play one-on-one. In that circumstance you don't have to beat a whole table full of foes. You only have to beat one guy, and guess what?
He's not as smart as you!
How do I know? Simple deduction: The fact that you found your way to this site and this article self-selects you as being more educated, and more dedicated to your education, than your average Joe foe. Even among the universe of online poker players (a generally smarter universe than the common population) there are people who don't really know what they're doing and never bother to learn.
If you can get heads-up against one of these under-prepared knuckleheads, he's practically a lock to give his money to you.
And you can! You can get heads-up against bad players a lot in one-on-one sitngos because the very format of the thing appeals greatly to a certain type of undereducated poker player: the action junkie who wants to be involved in every single hand.
Is every one-on-one player a bad player? Of course not. But if more than half of them are (and I contend that many more than half of them are) you should be able to win more than your share of one-on-one clashes, just by dint of your superior knowledge and skill.
But let's not stop there. Let's not content ourselves with beating bad players heads up. Let's have strategies for beating the good ones too. And let's go into the exercise with an air of supreme arrogance! Let's take it as given that we're going to dominate and crush every single foe who dares to take us on.If you feel that this sort of arrogance is unwarranted, don't worry; you'll soon have the tools to back up your superiority complex. You'll soon have everything you need to sit down opposite anyone and by degrees strip his luck away.
And then he'll be standing there naked, with nothing but inferior skill on his side.
And then you're gonna pick him clean.
Get here the best poker strategy tips and techniques to improve your game. The basic strategies outlined below are your first step essentials in your poker education.
| Ultimate-Bet Poker tournament Strategy - Articles | |
|---|---|
| Match Play for Fun and Profit - Part 1: Luck Sucks | by John Vorhaus |
| Match Play for Fun and Profit - Part 2: Patience | by John Vorhaus |
| Match Play for Fun and Profit - Part 3: The Risk/Reward Ratio | by John Vorhaus |
| Match Play for Fun and Profit - Part 4: Three Playing Zones | by John Vorhaus |