Live Poker Blog and Podcasts

By John Harding

The World Series of Poker has sprouted many followers in the last couple of years. Amateur tables are popping up all over the world and friendly cash games are everywhere come Friday night. Whether it is for thrill or profit the so called sport of poker has the attention of many onlookers year round. While Amateurs know the basics of the game they usually get lost in all the poker lingo spoken at the casino poker tables. While some is lingo is made up by experienced players to throw off the amateurs, some are actually well known terms in the poker world that any amateur trying to make it big should know. Below is a guide to all the poker lingo you could ever want to impress your friends or intimidate an experienced opponent.

Ante: The initial money thrown into the pot to induce betting. This is done before the flop.

All In: When a person decides to put all his chips in to bet on a certain hand. No Limit Hold ‘Em is the most popular game and All Ins are allowed as many times as a player wants. In Limit Hold ‘Em you cannot bet more then the pot itself.

Backdoor: Backdoor is a reference to when players are chasing a card that has not come up yet but has a good chance to. Having 4 cards of the same kind is a backdoor flush draw, having four cards in a row is a backdoor straight draw.

Bad Beat: A Bad Beat occurs when a player has a large advantage over the other and the last card beats the big hand by luck. Bad beat is usually used to imply that the player with the weak hand should not have been in the hand at all and it was by mere luck that he won his underdog hand.

Blind: In Texas Hold ‘Em, the game uses blinds instead of antes. The blinds are forced bets to induce some money in the pot by the two people sitting to the left of the dealer. The first person to the left of the dealer is the “small blind” and bets a smaller amount. The second person to the left of the dealer is the “big blind” and bets twice what the small blind has.

Bottom Pair: The lowest pair out of the cards out on the table.

Check: When a player decides to not bet he calls “Check”. This is the option of betting zero dollars.

Check Raise: When a player checks with a strong hand hoping another opponent will raise. The player then re-raises with his strong hand thus getting more money out of his opponent in the pot.

Drawing Dead: When a player is trying to make a hand that will still not win the pot.

Flop: The first three cards that are “flopped” onto the table. These are also called community cards.

Heads Up Play: When there are only two players playing a certain hand they are considered “heads up”.

Muck: A pile of unused cards usually in front of the dealer. These come from folded or burned cards. To “muck your cards” is to fold them by throwing them into the muck pile.

The Nuts: Likely the favorite expression of any poker player. The Nuts indicates a hand that is mathematically unbeatable with the cards on the table.

Offsuit: When the two cards you are dealt are of different suits.

Pocket: The two cards dealt to you in Texas Hold ‘Em that only you can see.

Rake: The total amount of money that the casino’s dealer takes out of every pot.

The River: The last card to be flopped on the board. The 5th card to come out in a Texas Hold ‘Em game.

Short Stack: The short stack is referring to the player with the least amount of chips at the table.

Tell: A tell refers to a players action when he or she has a good or bad hand. Some players take off their sun glasses when they have a bad hand. Other players tend to itch their right hand when they have a good hand.

The Turn: The fourth card to be flopped onto the table in a Texas Hold ‘Em game.

These are the necessary terms in order to keep up with the pros. There are hundreds of other terms in the world of poker, yet they are much less needed or too experienced for the amateur. Learn this lingo and impress your friends or play at experienced tables and wow the crowd. Lastly, poker is a great game, but the greatest player in poker knows one this: When to know you’re beat. Everyone likes to hold ‘em, but sometimes you get that feeling and you just have to fold’em.

John Harding is a respected poker author and has more articles at Poker-Prophet.com

By Lise Larsen

Satellite poker tournaments are becoming increasingly popular. Many people are using satellites to work their way to the prestigious and expensive tournaments like the World Series of Poker. What are satellite tournaments? They are generally small tournaments that award a seat (or seats) at a larger tournament as the prize.

Since many of the large poker tournaments are very costly to enter, satellites can be a good entree for a less experienced or cash-poor player. For example, it can cost as much $10,000 to buy a seat at a tournament like WSOP. This is prohibitive for some, however they have a chance by winning a satellite tournaments that can have a buy-in as low as a much more affordable $100.

There are different types of satellites and good players adjust their poker strategies based on the type of tournament they are playing.

Satellite Strategy for Single Winner Tournaments

Some tournaments have only a single winner; these are also known as winner-take-all tournaments. The only way to win one of these satellites is to get all of the chips, so this type of tournament is not well-suited to those with conservative strategies. Of course, luck plays a part, but bold and gutsy play is required to take it all.

Satellite Strategy for Multi-Winner Tournaments

Satellite strategy needs to vary when you play a tournament with multiple winners. Some satellites offer only a winning spots, but tend to have low buy-ins. Others have higher buy-ins but offer more advancement seats to winners. Make sure you look at the number of entrants that will be allowed and figure out how many seats there are per entrant to choose the best satellite.

Once you are in the game, your satellite strategy needs to be based in part on the part of the game you are in. While you need to earn the most chips possible, conservative play in early stages is often rewarded since it will allow you to stay in the game. Since the goal in this style of satellite isn’t to be the winner, but to be one of the last players standing, it is important to play for longevity; hence, a strategy that risks you going broke in early hands s not a good idea.

As the stakes rise, you need to get a little more aggressive. You need to start taking pots. In addition, you do not want to risk your stack getting too small compared to other players, because that will attract aggressive players to attack in order to knock you out of the game. You need to get to the latest stage of the game, but you also need to get there with enough chips to finish the game.

If you manage to enter the final rounds of the game with an ample stack, you need to capitalize on your lead. Since other players may start to be conservative at this point, fearing getting knocked out, you have the opportunity to play more aggressively and scoop up the pots. Consider playing a hand that you might have folded on in the early stages of the game.

Always remember where the money is (or the satellite seats are) and keep your eye on the number of players remaining when implementing your satellite strategy. In addition, it is important to make your play while you have enough chips to make a difference. It is better to get knocked out with a bold play on a nothing hand than to fizzle out when you finally do not have enough chips to ante.

Article by Lise Larsen. She teaches you how to play poker at ChipsAndPoker.com

By Joseph Miyamoto

What is a multi table tournament shootout structure? A shootout tournament is one in which each table plays down to one to three players. The winners of each single table then advances to the next level.

As an example, say a tournament had 100 entrants consisting of 10 tables of 10 players. The entry fee is $10. The total prize pool is $1000. In this particular tournament, the top three finishers at each table advance to the next level. The winner at each table receives 1% of the prize pool or $10, second place receives 1/2% or $5 while third place receives nothing but still advances to the next level. Level one ends with 30 of the original 100 players advancing. The 10 table winners are now playing for free, having won back their entry fee.

Level 2 consists of 3 tables of 10 players. Again, the top 3 finishers advance. Each of the 3 table winners receives 2% of the prize pool or $20, second place receives 1% or $10, third place receives nothing but does advance. In the first 2 levels, there is the potential for 26 players to receive some prize money. In the usual 100 player multi table tournament only 10 players divide up the prize pool.

Nine players now advance to the final table. The payouts are: 1st: 25% ($250), 2nd: 15% ($150), 3rd: 9% ($90), 4th: 7% ($70), 5th: 6% ($60), 6th: 5% ($50), 7th: 4% ($40), 8th: 3% ($30), 9th: 2% ($20).

If a player was able to win at his table at each level, he would win a total of $280. In a typical multi table tournament, first prize would be 30% or $300. The prize payouts are nearly the same but a greater number of players are able to receive a piece of the pie. Under this example of a shootout tournament, 30 players advance with a chance to capture part of 35 payouts, i.e 20 at level one, 6 at level 2, and 9 at the final table.

The beauty of this type of tournament structure is that it brings into play more of the skills necessary to become a truly skilled poker player. These skills are the ability to plays heads up, the ability to play short handed, the ability to read players well , the ability to play very consistently and most importantly, the ability to win.

Current multi table tournaments constantly strive to keep nearly full tables as players are eliminated. It is very rare that a table will have less than 7 players before it is refilled by transferring players from other tables. That means that a player never has to play at a short handed table (a short handed table is defined as a table of 5 or 6 players) until reaching the final table. Nor does a player ever have to play heads up against another player in a multi table tournament unless he is one of the two remaining players in the tournament.

Without question, the truly skilled poker player knows how to play a short handed table and heads up play very well. But these skills only come into play for those players who make the final table in the current multi table tournament structure. In fact, current multi-table tournament structure favors the player who is able to play well enough to survive and outlast the field. Outlasting the field doesn’t necessarily involve playing optimum poker.

Under the shootout format, the ability to read the player becomes more important. Once the tournament starts you know your other 9 opponents. The ability to recognize tells and betting patterns becomes more important. The ability to attack another player’s weakness becomes easier as the table is slowly whittled down in size. The need to play for hours on end over several days is eliminated. Current multi-table tournaments are akin to running a marathon. A Shootout tournament is more analogous to a 10k run.

In other words, current multi-table tournaments penalize great players like Doyle Brunson or T.J. Cloutier. A person in their 60’s or 70’s can’t be expected to have the stamina to play 10 to 15 hours per day for several days. Such tournaments favor the young. But the 20 something year old player may not be the best player. Under the shootout format, it may take 6 or 8 hours to play down to a single winner if the blinds are increased every hour. The ability to focus, concentrate and play superior poker comes more into play. Age and stamina becomes less of a factor.

The shootout format also benefits the newer player. It gives the newer player more opportunity to play in short handed situations and heads up situations. It also requires all players of any skill level to get better at reading players. Under current multi-table tournament structures, as the blinds begin to rise to larger levels, a strategy of only playing the strongest 8 or 10 starting hands becomes more prevalent. The ability to bluff is greatly reduced when the table is constantly being refilled with new players whose playing style is initially unknown. Less real poker is played as more hands become allin situations in which the luckier two cards prevail.

With a shootout structure, the more skilled player will be able to utilize skills like bluffing or bet size to his/her advantage more often as the table is pared down in size. Each opponents strengths and weaknesses will become more apparent the longer they play against each other. The need to just survive to the money level is eliminated. Under a shootout structure a player has to play to win.

Under current multi-table tournament play, a player may acquire a substantial number of chips due to the quality of players he faced rather than his playing skill. If a player is lucky enough to play against new, weak or maniac players who are willing to throw a lot of chips into a pot, he may build a large stack of chips. However, a better player may have played just as well but faced stronger or more conservative players. His chip stack going into the home stretch may be substantially less even though he has won just as many hands and against better players.

With the shootout format, each player advances with substantially the same number of chips to the next level. Play at the next level starts on a level basis. Consistency and strong play become more important. Moreover, each table at each advancing level fills with strong players since only winners advance. The table is not being filled with players who are managing to just survive.

In summary, I would like to see more shootout tournaments added to the WPT and WSOP tournament schedules, as well as, online poker tournaments because it showcases more poker skills such as heads up play, short handed play, reading skills and consistency. Such tournaments will enable players of all skill levels to develop these skills sooner and better since the shootout format provides more opportunities to test these skills.

Joseph Miyamoto,
LoveableRogues.com