by FTR Poker Admin | Aug 15, 2022 | Beginner Poker, No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
Most of us have played poker in one form or another. The game is universal, reaching across the world to unite players of all ages and nations. Let’s get to the basics. Players are each dealt a set number of cards in a predetermined timing system (deal, flop,...
by carlcarlsoniv | Aug 15, 2022 | No Limit Hold'em
Last week we started looking at the relationship between bluffing and semi-bluffing for the purposes of being able to construct examples to study that allow us to build our intuition, or our feel for the game. We specifically looked at scenarios where we only had nut...
by FTR Poker Admin | Aug 14, 2022 | Beginner Poker, Cash Games, No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
This is the first of a series of poker articles that I’ll be writing each week here at FlopTurnRiver. The objective of this article is to present what I think is an excellent approach to studying poker that will be central to my future articles. The Problems...
by FTR Poker Admin | Aug 13, 2022 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Psychology, Poker Strategy
The ability to bluff in poker is perhaps the biggest allure of the game. At its core, the game of poker can be reduced down to one huge game of bullshit (or if you grew up in a household where swearing was frowned upon, the game was likely called “I doubt...
by FTR Poker Admin | Aug 13, 2022 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
Gah, I got this idea in my head and thought I’d write it down. A month ago I essentially explained to my AIM buddies something I was thinking about in a lot of depth, as it was a concept that was integral in killing tight passive games. Pretty much everything I...
by FTR Poker Admin | Aug 12, 2022 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
Last week I said that we would look more at the turn. Instead, I’ve decided that we’re going to look at something else that will be more useful: hitting pairs with different ranges. It’s fairly easy to see how many draws ranges have and if those...
by FTR Poker Admin | Aug 12, 2022 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
If you haven’t read part 1 and part 2, then you’ll need to go ahead and do that before you jump into this week’s article because I’m going to assume that you know and completely understand the contents of those two parts. This week, we’re...
by givememyleg | Aug 9, 2022 | Beginner Poker, Cash Games, Live Poker, No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
In the past when live games became tough to beat players turned to online poker to hone their skills, get multi-table bonuses, and make money. With the games online getting harder by the day it is quite ironic the same players find themselves heading back to the live...
by FTR Poker Admin | Aug 9, 2022 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
How hard can it be to continually make money in the nosebleed games on Full Tilt Poker? I reckon it must be pretty damn hard to do it year in and year out. If it was that easy then people like Brian Townsend wouldn’t have been found guilty of multi-accounting (sorry...
by FTR Poker Admin | Aug 9, 2022 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
#2 Poor Table and Seat Selection Table Selection Table selection is an extremely important and overlooked aspect of playing winning poker. There’s an age-old adage: “How would the world’s 10th best player fare if he only played with the 9 players who were...
by FTR Poker Admin | Aug 9, 2022 | Beginner Poker, Cash Games, No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
In no-limit hold’em, the most popular form of poker in the world, what poker hands you choose to play pre-flop is mostly dependent on how well the hands are going to play post-flop. How well hands play post-flop depend on a few main factors, like the ability to...
by FTR Poker Admin | Aug 8, 2022 | Beginner Poker, No Limit Hold'em
Introduction This is the fifth part of the NLHE Foundations Series. This series is designed to give a clear set of topics to study and methods for studying that will bring players up to the intermediate levels in no-limit hold’em. People who are signed up in the...
by FTR Poker Admin | Aug 7, 2022 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
There has been a request for a beginners guide to equity so that’s going to be the article for this week. Equity is our mathematical chance of our hand or hand range winning the hand against our opponents hand or hand range. For example, the hand AA has 80% equity...
by FTR Poker Admin | Aug 6, 2022 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Psychology, Poker Strategy
Leveling is an in-game battle of psychology. It stems from this: Level 0: What do I have? Level 1: What does my opponent have? Level 2: What does my opponent think I have? Level 3: What does my opponent think that I think they have? Level 4: What does my opponent...
by FTR Poker Admin | Aug 5, 2022 | Beginner Poker, Cash Games, No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
Online poker has blown up in the past decade. It has become the favorite past time of many people around the world. With the software online poker sites use, tables can be created at no extra cost. This means that online poker sites do not require all tables to be...
by FTR Poker Admin | Aug 5, 2022 | Beginner Poker, No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
The semi-bluff: know it, use it, love it. To be a poker rock star (i.e. you turn a profit!), it is necessary to have in your arsenal of moves. David Slansky defines the semi-bluff as “a bet with a hand which, if called, does not figure to be the best hand at the...
by FTR Poker Admin | Aug 4, 2022 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
General Approach: Buy-in for 50bb. Re-load when you drop below 40bb. At 75bb re-evaluate table conditions. If you don’t like your seat or table, nit it up until your blinds hit, then leave. Tend to leave if you drop 100bb at a table. Advantages to a less than...
by FTR Poker Admin | Aug 2, 2022 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
Note – SPR stands for Stack to Pot Ratio. I think a lot of SPR importance is based solely on the texture of the games you are playing in. To say a general statement like "SPR of 13 is bad for top pair" would be wrong, since with aggressive history 13...
by FTR Poker Admin | Aug 2, 2022 | Cash Games, No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
Surprisingly I couldn’t find any posts detailing this, so I’m going to do my thing. A Common Scenario With 100bb effective stacks, EP opens for 4x preflop, there are 2 callers, and we call on the button with 9 8 . Both of the blinds call. The flop pot is...
by carlcarlsoniv | Aug 1, 2022 | No Limit Hold'em
Introduction Last week, we looked at a very specific question that gets asked a lot about 3-bet pots: How to Play AK When You Miss the Flop. We discussed a number of topics briefly, and there was a good response to the article, so we’re going to parlay that into...
by FTR Poker Admin | Aug 1, 2022 | Cash Games, No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
If your head starts to swim at the thought of hand ranges and default ranges and all the rest of the technical poker jargon, then don’t worry. If you are an experienced player then you will already be used to subconsciously placing your opponents on possible...
by FTR Poker Admin | Aug 1, 2022 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
Over the years, many people have asked me for advice on what is the “perfect” strategy for certain types of games. I think people get somewhat seduced by the thought that something as complex as poker can be simplified to a few basic strategies that can be...
by FTR Poker Admin | Jul 31, 2022 | Beginner Poker, Cash Games, No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
Beginners generally have trouble knowing how much to bet when they hit a hand. For the most part they know to “take away the other guy’s pot odds,” but there’s more to betting than that. Because… tell me if this happens to you… You...
by FTR Poker Admin | Jul 31, 2022 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
#4 Adjusting to Certain Player Types Poker is not an easy game. There are so many variables that a lot of the time it could be classified as a glorified guessing game. We are presented with many different opponents, all who have different ideas on optimal plays. To...
by FTR Poker Admin | Jul 31, 2022 | Beginner Poker, No Limit Hold'em, Poker Psychology, Poker Strategy
People who know how I approach things will be able to tell you that I focus primarily on depth instead of breadth. However, this week’s column is going to be a bit different. Over the past couple of months, I’ve been laying out a way to think about the...
by FTR Poker Admin | Jul 30, 2022 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
Written by Carl Sampson, aka The Dean, 2009. Years ago the continuation bet was a very little known poker concept. This was knowledge that only regular strong players tended to have. This is not the case anymore and continuation betting is so basic that it basically...
by FTR Poker Admin | Jul 30, 2022 | Beginner Poker, No Limit Hold'em
NLHE Foundations Course This is the second lesson in the free No-Limit Hold’em foundations course, and all you have to do to sign up is create an account (if you haven’t already) and post in the forum thread I just linked to saying you want in. I’ll...
by FTR Poker Admin | Jul 30, 2022 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
#3 Value Betting and Bet-Sizing Being able to size bets correctly in No-Limit Hold’em is a critical factor in improving your win-rate. Bet-sizing as a concept is not the easiest to explain or master but I will do my best. There are many different types of bets one...
by FTR Poker Admin | Jul 30, 2022 | Beginner Poker, No Limit Hold'em
Introduction This is part four in the NLHE Foundations Series. I’ve designed this series to give players a clear path from the beginner to intermediate levels in no-limit hold’em. There’s a lot more to this series than these posts because...
by FTR Poker Admin | Jul 29, 2022 | Cash Games, No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
This is the fourth part in a series dealing with the key ideas that can be used to accelerate the process of gaining a feel for equities in different spots. In this week’s edition, we’re going to discuss some major cases for when the turn comes and how you...
by FTR Poker Admin | Jul 29, 2022 | Cash Games, No Limit Hold'em, Poker Psychology, Poker Strategy
Below you will see an interesting discussion on river check/raises which took place in the High Stakes forum. It started with ISF showing hands and posters such as Sauce123, Massimo, Toadstool, and gabe adding their replies. View the check raise theory...
by FTR Poker Admin | Jul 29, 2022 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
There are still some good hands yet to be played, but you must be careful! We are running pretty thin at this point. Here are my Group 6 hands: Group 6: KT QT JT A7s K9s Q9s T9s J9s A5s A6s A4s A3s A2s Again, this group is a clear departure from Sklansky and the...
by FTR Poker Admin | Jul 28, 2022 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
If you read my posts in the forums, you’ll notice I’ll throw around this word manipulation without too much explanation. In my earlier blog, I did write an article about manipulation where I talked about it in terms of bet sizing. Well, my old blog is gone now, and as...
by FTR Poker Admin | Jul 27, 2022 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
I decided to write this entry because I feel like I’m responding with the same answers to the same questions over and over and over about playing in 3bet pots. I think this forum could definitely benefit from this article and it will make it much easier the next...
by FTR Poker Admin | Jul 27, 2022 | Beginner Poker, Cash Games, No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
In one of the very first editions of this weekly strategy column, I discussed the importance of being able to break down situations to a basic level to look at how they work. We’ve looked at a lot of theory-heavy material since then, and as I mentioned in last...
by FTR Poker Admin | Jul 27, 2022 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Psychology, Poker Strategy
Over the past few weeks, we have looked at exploiting our opponents in flop situations. Our focus has been on looking at our ranges on a conceptual level, but now we’re going to look more at the process of exploitation. The goal with this week’s article is...
by FTR Poker Admin | Jul 27, 2022 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
The alpha value is one of the most important numbers in a discussion of poker because it gives you a lot of information with a simple calculation. However, it’s often applied incorrectly because of a lack of understanding of what it can and should be used for....
by FTR Poker Admin | Jul 27, 2022 | Beginner Poker, No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
It’s one of the scariest feelings in poker – You’ve just lost a huge pot to a three-to-one underdog and given up most of your stack. As you watch the opponent sort your chips and integrate them into his pile, a sickening realization creeps up on you…...
by FTR Poker Admin | Jul 26, 2022 | Beginner Poker, No Limit Hold'em
This is the third installment in the No-Limit Hold’em Foundations Course. Before you read this lesson, you should have completed lesson 1 and lesson 2, and this includes doing the exercises and posting them in the forum threads for each lesson. Also make sure to...
by FTR Poker Admin | Jul 26, 2022 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
After the Big 10 starting hands, I do not necessarily automatically raise pre-flop from any position. My play becomes more selective. Group 3: AQ 99 88 77 ATs KJs Sklansky’s Group 3 has been slightly re-arranged by the Carnegie Mellon group, which I’ve further...
by FTR Poker Admin | Jul 26, 2022 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
Over the past three weeks, we have been building up to this week’s material. This week, we’re going to look at how to use what we’ve learned so far to perform EV calculations for extremely complicated scenarios. The math involved does not change at...
by FTR Poker Admin | Jul 25, 2022 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Psychology, Poker Strategy
When it comes to getting better in an early stage of your career, hand reading is a premium. You can understand poker as much as you’d like, but it’s not going to help if you can’t read hands well. It’s hard to know what to do when you have no idea what your opponents...
by FTR Poker Admin | Jul 25, 2022 | Featured No Limit Hold'em, Featured Strategy, No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
Amazingly, when I was high yesterday from some horrible weed, I came to a breakthrough thought in my poker game. I called sauce up and explained to him what I just realized and he had no idea why it was so amazing. It took me awhile, but then I realized that the...
by FTR Poker Admin | Jul 25, 2022 | Beginner Poker, No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
This seemingly simple topic might be one of the most misunderstood by beginners in poker. Learning about reverse implied odds was quite eye-opening for me and led to a large improvement in my ability. Most players, even those new to the game, understand what is meant...
by FTR Poker Admin | Jul 25, 2022 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
In the context of poker, preparation could mean a number of different things, but we’re going to focus specifically on a few instances here. First, we’re going to look at how to and the advantages of preparing when you make a bet or raise. Second,...
by FTR Poker Admin | Jul 25, 2022 | Cash Games, No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
Group 1: any two cards Group 2: any two cards you found in your wallet (Blockbuster, Visa, library card) Har har! Not really. But yes, the starting requirements are a lot looser and a lot more vague than in a full ring game. I don’t consult a chart – a lot...
by FTR Poker Admin | Jul 25, 2022 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
As you begin to peel away the surface of no-limit Hold’em and in particular, no-limit Hold’em cash games, it becomes apparent that the game itself has design problems. What in heavens name do I mean? Well to put it in plain English, what other field of...
by FTR Poker Admin | Jul 24, 2022 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
From now on every Friday I will be taking some of the strategy discussion from the forums, sum up some of the cool content in case you missed it, and make my own comments on the issues discussed. In the high stakes forum this week, there was a hand posted by...
by carlcarlsoniv | Jul 24, 2022 | No Limit Hold'em
In this week’s column, we’re going to investigate the idea of betting to protect your hand. A number of people bet with the excuse of protecting their hand almost every chance that they get. On the other hand, a lot of people dismiss this concept as being...
by FTR Poker Admin | Jul 24, 2022 | Beginner Poker, No Limit Hold'em
The Most Important Series I’ve Ever Written Back in late 2013, I wrote a five-part series that did something that I still think is pretty incredible: I taught a process for doing complex expected value (EV) calculations without requiring any kind of advanced...
by FTR Poker Admin | Jul 24, 2022 | Beginner Poker, Cash Games, No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
Most players who are new to online poker will start at the lowest stakes possible, commonly known as “Microstakes”. In general, microstakes are considered to be any poker stakes up to $0.10/$0.25 blinds in NL and $0.50/$1.00 in Limit games. The concept of...
by carlcarlsoniv | Jul 23, 2022 | No Limit Hold'em
I’m going to pick back up on the NL 2-7 Single Draw series later, but because of popualr interest, we’re going to look at a different topic today. This week’s topic is that of multiway pots, why they are different and how you should adjust to them....
by FTR Poker Admin | Jul 23, 2022 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
Balance by Meeloche Simple Definition as it applies to poker: Taking the same line as a bluff as you would for value, example a cbet on an AK9 board with 78o. The point is not to bluff 50% of the time and value bet 50% of the time on the example board, but to credibly...
by FTR Poker Admin | Jul 23, 2022 | Cash Games, No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
One of the things that a lot of people have a big misunderstanding about is the difference between equity and expected value. We’re going to look at a few examples in this week’s article that should help players to develop some clarity on this issue....
by FTR Poker Admin | Jul 23, 2022 | Beginner Poker, Featured No Limit Hold'em, No Limit Hold'em, Poker Psychology, Poker Strategy
I feel like tons of the noobies in the BC have serious misconceptions about microstakes poker. Here are a few I’ve seen lately. 1. The micros are just too fishy to be beat for any decent win rate. 2. The micros are too hard to be beat since UIGEA. 3. The FTR...
by FTR Poker Admin | Jul 23, 2022 | Beginner Poker, No Limit Hold'em
The Fundamentals Poker players have a really bad habit of getting seduced by what appear to be fancy tactics like over-the-top bluffs, laying down big hands and making huge calls with weak hands. In an effort to emulate the professionals who they see making these big...
by FTR Poker Admin | Jul 22, 2022 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
Last week, we looked at one of the scenarios that helps to form a foundation of poker understanding. This scenario was when we are on the river, heads-up, in position with a single bet left behind. More specifically, we looked at the bluffing frequency of the player...
by FTR Poker Admin | Jul 22, 2022 | Beginner Poker, Cash Games, Limit Hold’em, No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
In my last post, I talked about why bluffing is such an integral part of poker. In this post I want to focus on what conditions we need to make a bluff successful. Anyone who has played poker for a decent amount of time has had a bluff blow up in their face. ...
by carlcarlsoniv | Jul 22, 2022 | No Limit Hold'em
This is part five of the Back to Basics series. Last week, I said that this week’s installment would be about using spreadsheets to simplify analysis. Well, I lied. I’m going to do a future series on that because I don’t think I can do the topic...
by FTR Poker Admin | Jul 22, 2022 | Beginner Poker, Cash Games, No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
Out of all the strategic aspects at play in any given poker game, there is none more important than table position. Players who can manipulate the hand-to-hand shift in the betting patterns will have a greater chance to be successful, regardless of the cards in their...
by FTR Poker Admin | Jul 21, 2022 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
Progression through the micros naturally trends us toward unbalanced lines. We start playing basic TAGG, then learn to steal blinds more, to cbet more. Hey, it works. When we face better competition at 100nl or higher, the lack of balance is very exploitable. Trust me...
by givememyleg | Jul 20, 2022 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
Importance of Table Position Location, location, location. This is the mantra for businesses such as retail stores and real estate. In poker, it’s position, position, position. There is simply nothing more important in no-limit hold’em than position. In...
by givememyleg | Jul 20, 2022 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
If poker was all about exercising knowledge, then it would be basically all too easy to earn money at the game, but life is never that easy is it? For instance many authors have written excellent poker books without the effects of having written that book having any...
by FTR Poker Admin | Jul 20, 2022 | Beginner Poker, Cash Games, Featured Beginner Poker, Featured Cash Games, Featured No Limit Hold'em, No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
One seemingly simple concept in No-Limit Texas Hold’em which tends to get a large amount of discussion is continuation betting. For those unfamiliar with the term a continuation bet (c-bet) is a bet by the pre-flop raiser on the flop. The term refers to this...
by FTR Poker Admin | Jul 20, 2022 | Beginner Poker, No Limit Hold'em
Introduction I’ve been doing the free NLHE Foundations Course here on FlopTurnRiver to give players a straight-forward path to go from the beginner levels to the intermediate levels with a mind towards being able to systematically improve over time. If you want...
by FTR Poker Admin | Jul 20, 2022 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
Actually, I almost didn’t write this article simply because I thought that writing it might be a waste of time. The reason being is that the vast majority of players who read this will probably, through a combination of conceit and egotism, think that I am not...
by FTR Poker Admin | Jul 20, 2022 | Beginner Poker, Cash Games, No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
Over the past twelve months, I have been observing the lower stakes no-limit games and playing in them quite extensively including around 100k hands at NL50. I have been observing the games on Pokerloco recently which is a site that is situated on Ongame. I have been...
by FTR Poker Admin | Jul 19, 2022 | Beginner Poker, No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
Wherever you go these days, be it on poker forums, poker websites or poker magazines, you will be confronted by a myriad of information concerning how to play certain hands in certain situations. Now before I go any further, there is absolutely nothing wrong with...
by carlcarlsoniv | Jul 19, 2022 | No Limit Hold'em
The terms attack and defense in poker are almost always used in an effort to describe the idea of initiative. We have this idea of aggression in poker as being represented by the actions that put more unmatched money into the pot like betting and raising, and then we...
by FTR Poker Admin | Jul 19, 2022 | Cash Games, No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
A few months ago when I was participating in my NL50 poker challenge, it soon become apparent that there were an awful lot of bad regs at this level in both six max and full-ring, but especially six max. In any form of poker, the fewer players that there is on the...
by carlcarlsoniv | Jul 19, 2022 | No Limit Hold'em
Introduction A lot of players, especially newbies, get confused on what to do when their AK misses the flop. This is especially true in 3-bet pots where you aren’t really sure just what you’re supposed to be doing. A lot of players will blindly c-bet, but...
by carlcarlsoniv | Jul 18, 2022 | No Limit Hold'em
Why You People Need Help I’ve seen quite a few posts recently in the Small Stakes No-Limit Hold’em forum that center around a multi-player hand that was handled in a really poor way just because someone didn’t adhere to the basics concepts that drive...
by FTR Poker Admin | Jul 18, 2022 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
One of the most difficult and yet crucial decisions you will make when playing no limit Texas holdem will be whether to even play your hand. This decision should not be made haphazardly. Hitting your card on the flop only to end up with the second best hand can be...
by carlcarlsoniv | Jul 18, 2022 | No Limit Hold'em
Last week, we took an initial look at the [0, 1] model for ranges and looked at a couple of examples of how it can be put to work for us. We tied this into our previous discussion of how to calculate the EV of different types of situations, and we looked at how to use...
by FTR Poker Admin | Jul 18, 2022 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
For the original ISF theorem post go here: ISF Theorem When I wrote ISF Theorem a half year ago, I was at a very frustrating point in my game. I was a very marginal winner at 200nl and was going on two straight losing months, which was absolutely devastating to my...
by carlcarlsoniv | Jul 18, 2022 | No Limit Hold'em
A while back, I wrote the EV Calculations Tutorial series to help people to deal with the math side of poker. We followed a very simple process that kept our analysis organized and clean, and we did so only requiring basic addition and multiplication. While this is...
by FTR Poker Admin | Jul 17, 2022 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
So everyone who reads and posts in this forum knows how to evaluate a HH, knows about preflop, knows about continuation betting and knows something about hand values and hand ranges. Perhaps the most important thing about poker though, and why some "bad"...
by carlcarlsoniv | Jul 17, 2022 | No Limit Hold'em
Introduction A lot of the time in poker, we get caught up on the idea of wanting to know if something is profitable or not. We often make mistakes in our game because we’re taking an aggressive action that we have deemed to be profitable since we have made a...
by givememyleg | Jul 17, 2022 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
Poker should not be thought of as a game that starts when the cards are dealt and ends with the showdown. At its core, poker is a game of competing strategies. This is why when we classify players, we classify them by their strategy and skill level. Here, we will...
by FTR Poker Admin | Jul 17, 2022 | Beginner Poker, Cash Games, No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
I have to admit, most of my articles give advice that is hard to understand. When you don’t understand preliminary concepts to the ideas of talking about, it’s almost impossible to truly understand anything I or high stakes players talk about. In later articles I’m...
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