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1st Lecture - How To Watch For Tells

The following lecture was the very first Tuesday Session, held September 29, 1998, and later appeared in Card Player magazine.

1. Tells are simply mannerisms that enable us to determine when opponents are bluffing and when they'renot (plus much more) based upon how they behave.

In general, your job is to figure out whether an opponent is acting or not. Usually, if he is acting, youshould determine what he is trying to get you to do and react opposite.

If he is not acting, react directly in accordance with the tell.

In Caro's Book of Tells - The Body Language of Poker, and subsequently in my video set covering thetopic, I examined poker tells that were both voluntary and involuntary. Many of these clues come fromplayers who are not acting. For instance, when you hear and see an opponent breathing fast, loud, orerratically, there's a great chance that he holds a strong hand. This is involuntary. Conversely, a playerwho is bluffing is often afraid to breathe. You will encounter very shallow breathing from typical bluffers.Sometimes they don't breathe at all. Again, this isn't an act.

When someone who was formerly steady makes a bet and seems suddenly to be trembling in the midstof a hand, this is not likely to be an act. Nor is it a bluff. While many people think a shaking hand issuspicious and indicative of nervousness associated with a bluff, this isn't the way life works. Playerswho are bluffing tend to bolster themselves and become rigid - showing few outward signs ofnervousness. They are afraid of being "read," and so they steady themselves and do nothing out of theordinary. This, too, is not an act. It is instinctive reaction.

Your opponents do act, however, when they decide to convince you of something. Usually, this takes theform of acting opposite of the true strength of their hand - weak when they hold strong hands and strongwhen they hold weak hands. That's why you'll see players with unbeatable hands shrug, sigh, and betsadly. They are trying to convince you that their hands are not worth getting excited about, but it's a lie.

In short, your first mission is to decide whether your opponent is acting. If he is, figure out what he's

trying to get you to do and disappoint him.

2. Players are more likely to be acting if they think that you are scrutinizing them. Therefore, if a player hasa tendency to give away his hand by overacting, you should make it very clear that you're watching him.

Very many times when I can't pick up a tell on a player, one will suddenly appear when I make it obviousto that opponent that I'm pondering what to do while I study him. The more I scrutinize the more likelymy opponent is to exhibit a tell in a failed effort to hide the truth.

3. Try not to appear that you're reacting to a tell. Once you spot the tell, hesitate, pretend to ponder.Finally, make your move as if still undecided.

The more quickly you react to a tell, the more likely you are to tip off your opponent that you are reading

him, and the more likely he is to correct the behavior. Remember to hesitate.

Sometimes pride temps us to react immediately to a tell. I've even seen professional players make aquick winning call and then explain to the opponent, "I knew you were bluffing as soon as you blah, blah,blah." Well, that's sure to keep the opponent from never blah, blah, blahing again, and it might cost youa ton of money. If you spot a tell, use it to make money. Don't use it to show off.

4. You should not think of most tells as absolute clues to an opponent's hand. The vast majority of tells areonly indications that push a decision in one direction or another.

You can think of most tells the same way you'd think of someone trying to make a heart flush in seven-card stud when you've seen six other hearts. It is much less likely now that the player has the flush, butyou aren't certain that he doesn't. Tells - except for the rarer ones that are almost 100 percent positive

indicators - should be used in this same way. They should be weighed along with many other factors incoming to a conclusion.



5. Watch for the tail end of a bet. A little extra emphasis usually means a weak or vulnerable hand. Thisturns out to be one of the most profitable tells in poker, but one of the hardest to spot. You need to reallypractice observing. The reason it's hard to see the tail end of the bet is because you're apt to beoverwhelmed by the more obvious motion.

After awhile, you're get used to watching for a little extra push with the tip of the fingers. It's very subtle,and when you see it you can safely call with a medium-strong hand. You're facing either a bluff or adaring bet from a less than stellar hand. Psychologically, the bettor reasoned that he needed that subtleextra emphasis to make his hand seem stronger than it is.

6. Watch to see how much general motion an opponent is normally comfortable with. If that opponent isquite jittery, taps his foot, shakes his legs, drums his fingers, shifts around in his chair, or shows othersigns of life, you should be concerned if the opponent bets and continues in this mode.

Players who are normally animated and continue to fidget after a bet are generally comfortable with theirhands.

Players who suddenly freeze are often bluffing. This holds true for humming, whistling, and talking, too.When it stops, that's often a bluff or a weak hands. If it doesn't stop, beware.

7. Finally, I'm going to remind you again: Listen to the breathing! This is the main indicator of whethermany opponents are bluffing. Watch for heavy breathing. That's almost always a sign of a strong hand.Breath holding, though, means weakness.

That was the essence of Tuesday classroom session #1. In upcoming columns, I'll review some of the otherlessons. Gotta go now. We'll talk later.

2nd Lecture - Protecting Your Poker Bankroll And More

Protecting Your Poker Bankroll And More The following lecture is an extension of the very first lecture that took place on September 29, 1998, and later appeared in Cardplayer magazine.

Before I get into this topic, I need to point something out. I'm not a strong advocate of bankroll science. In fact, Ithink that most things said about bankrolls are not science at all. They are mostly just homespun wisdom. I'mgoing to start by telling you something that you know is true in your heart. You should never criticize a person fortaking "too much" risk, so long as that person understands the risk being taken and has the best of it. The morerisk you take, the more likely you are to capture sudden wealth, and the more likely you are to be damaged in thepursuit.

The risk is up to you. That's important, and I'll repeat it. The more risk you accept, the more likely you are tosuddenly prosper and the more likely you are to suddenly go broke. So, you see, it's your choice. What's anunacceptable risk for you may be tolerable for someone else. It's a personal decision. It's up to them. And it's upto you.

Also, you should be aware that there are mathematically derived methods that can be used to maximize yourchance of success once you've defined your goals. Although we've discussed these concepts before, we won'tdeal with them today. Here are the things that I spoke about at the Tuesday Session…

1. How big does your bankroll need to be? It is folly to criticize a player for having an insufficientstarting bankroll.Taking 100 shots with $50 each time gives you about the same chance of eventual success as taking asingle shot with $5,000 - provided you play your best game at all times.

Of course, this isn't precisely true. Other factors may influence your fate substantially. What factors?Well, if you play with a single buy-in, you're more likely to go all-in. These all-in situations change yourprospects. Actually, being all-in can often work to your advantage, because other players may theneliminate themselves from the showdown by not calling bets. While this is happening, you areguaranteed to make the showdown. This means you will win all pots where you can stumble into the

best hand, while your opponents will not.



You may also play differently on short money and your opponents may play differently against you. Yousometimes will not have the opportunity to stay in a good game with $50, although you might havestayed and made profit if you had a big bankroll behind you. There are many other factors to consider,but - in general - taking 100 shots with just $50 each time can be considered the same as gathering$5,000 before you play the first time. If you play the same type of poker, your prospects will be similar.

So, the common notion that short money is at a big disadvantage is a myth. You are much more likely togo broke with only a small buy-in, but the force of all those short buy-ins combined should give youabout the same opportunity overall as one big bankroll.

2. Not everyone needs a bankroll. Players who only expect to play occasionally, or who are playingrecreationally, can just bring whatever they can afford whenever they can afford it. Bankrolls are thingsyou build and are designed for people without infinite assets who want to play regularly.

3. You must play your best game all the time. The policy of playing your best game most of the time isthe greatest destroyer of bankrolls there is. At higher-limit games, players actually seem to take turns"going on tilt." If you pass your turn quite often, without your opponents realizing it, you'll win the mostmoney. This is known as "Caro's Law of Least Tilt."

I first wrote about this almost 20 years ago. It remains one of the most fundamentally important thingsyou can learn if you want to succeed at poker. You are not likely to succeed if you decide to blatantly

take advantage of knowledgeable opponents' super-loose play. If they're taking turns going on tilt, andyou come into the game and play perfectly stable, you won't fit in. They will resent you and often theywill stop providing you with profit.

The trick is to play along and show some fast action, too. Simulate tilt. Make them aware of it. But passyour turn when they don't notice. Among equally skilled players, the one who spends the least time ontilt (or simulating tilt) wins the most money.

4. Don't make the mistake of routinely promoting yourself to higher limits as you continue to win.You might eventually find a level you can't beat. When this happens, most players refuse to step backdown, and they lose or "spin their wheels" for the rest of their poker careers.

This is actually an application of the Peter Principle (about how people get promoted until they reachtheir level of incompetence) to poker.

5. Be selective about your games. Don't routinely take the first one you see. Most of your profit willcome from good games. Even most winning players lose money in tougher games.

Those are fighting words, but they're true. If I could select the worst 50 percent of games thatprofessionals played in throughout their careers, most would be losers for those sessions. It is the other50 percent of their games - and sometimes an even much smaller portion of their games - that supplythe profit for most pros. Game selection is much more important than most players suppose.

6. You should be less protective of a small bankroll. The larger your bankroll grows, the more worthy itis of protection and the less chances you should take. That's because a large bankroll would be muchharder to replace from sources in the world beyond poker. You can usually get a small starting bankrollfrom the "real" world, but it's unlikely that you will be able to replace an established bankroll in the same

way.7. Don't treat your bankroll like a tournament buy-in. You can have a "tournament" almost any day you

want. Just keep jumping into higher and higher limits until you reach a long-shot goal or go broke. But ina tournament, only one player ends up with the chips. Everyone else goes broke. Don't treat yourbankroll that way.

8. Don't spend your bankroll. It's tempting to start with $500, win $20,000, spend $12,000 you think youdon't need, then lose $8,500. You'll be flat broke, on the rail, and begging for money. But you actuallywon $11,500! Don't let that happen to you.

As strange as it seems, the majority of winning poker players - players who actually beat the games and have anexpectation of profit - are broke or nearly broke most of the time. Why? Because they spend their bankrolls. Thinkabout it. Tuesday Session is adjourned. - MC

3rd Lecture - Major Tips For October



The following lecture was the third Tuesday Session, held October 13, 1998, and later appeared in Card Player magazine.

Today we'll look at the third Tuesday Session, October 13, 1998. The title was, "Major Tips for October."

Major tips to try.

1. It's tempting to get into an ego war with a poker bully - someone who wants to establish dominance by"bulling" the game. Sometimes, it's a good idea to fire back with a few raises and sandbags (check-raises), especially if it will make the bully "behave." This is good strategy if the bully is a winner.

But, most often, the bully is not a winner. In that case, your best strategy is to simply call and let the bully"declare" his dominance. His declaration will not match his results.

This is a very important topic. You see, most players do not know how to react when an opponent triesto control the game through super-aggressive play. The solution is simple. If it's a strong opponent, it isin your best interest to neutralize this behavior. Raising back will do this. If it's a weak opponent, yourmaximum profit comes form letting him "rule."

By letting your weak opponents rule, you are allowing them to increase their most common mistakes -betting too much, raising too much, bluffing too much. You should tend to simply call. If you raise or useother counter-strategy to make their poker lives miserable, you are likely to bring them back in line. Theymay become wimps. They may stop their poor and unprofitable bets and raises … and your bankroll willsuffer.

There are some words of caution here. Letting someone else rule the game runs contrary to my generalphilosophy of establishing an image that makes you the one force to be reckoned with at the table. Forthis reason, I will only let weak opponents rule with bad bets and raises. I will tend to counter-attack bothstrong opponents and break-even opponents who try this tactic. Also, position comes into play here. Ifyou're sitting one or two seats to the right of the opponent, you are not in a good position to declare war.You should be much more willing to launch counter attacks if your on the left of that opponent, givingyou a positional advantage.

2. The middle position is frequently misplayed on final betting rounds - even by seasoned professionals. Ifyou have a strong hand that is not a cinch, you will usually make more money by just calling than byraising. Why? It's because your hand might not be best, you might lose a call from a weaker handbehind you, the original bettor might be bluffing (making a raise futile), and more. If the player behindyou has a hand that is better than yours, you probably won't chase him out with a raise, anyway. Savethis middle-position raise for weaker hands - and use it sparingly.

Analysis of many key situations shows that, when you have a fairly strong but vulnerable hand, justcalling is usually better in the middle position on the last betting round.

3. When you check-raise to get extra money, you prefer the player immediately to your left to be the mostlikely bettor. That way, the sequence can go you check-bet-call-you raise-call-call, giving you two bets

from each opponent. If the most likely bettor is the last of three players, the sequence is apt to be youcheck-check-call-you raise-fold-call. This leaves you only two bets captured. It's better to bet, in thatcase.

4. Eliminating opponents from proportional-payoff tournaments (in which the prize pool awarded to the topfinishers in accordance with their final standing) is not as valuable as most people suspect. Although latein the tournament, it's often a good thing, early on it has little value.

Even late in a tournament, it's not always worth the risk. And early in the tournament, making anunusually aggressive bet or call on the chance of eliminating an opponent makes no sense. If there are100 players left, the penalty for letting an opponent survive is about 1/100th of the value of his remainingchips. That usually isn't enough to change your strategy.

Most tournament players are way off the mark when it comes to eliminating players. It is not yourobligation to do so. You obligation is to make the most money for you. And that often means letting the

opponent live and holding onto your chips.



5. Fumbled bets that are quickly corrected are often bluffs. This is one of the strongest tells in poker. Whenan opponent fumbles a bet and it doesn't fall correctly into the pot, a bluffer will often tend to correct thesituation. It's a natural instinct. The player realizes that opponents are looking for reasons to call and thata fumbled bet is likely to make them suspicious and trigger their calling reflex. In a desperate effort to fixthis, the bluffer who fumbled will try to straighten the chips or the money - undoing the damage.However, a player who really does hold a strong hand will seldom bother to clean up a fumbled wager.He wants you to call, and there is no damage to undo.

6. Since the majority of hands you might play are about break-even, another skillful player could decide tonot play most of these. Effectively you would be playing twice as many hands and earning the sameprofit. Different styles for different folks!

This is among the most amazing concepts in poker. People often ask questions about how many handsthey should play. Since so many hands that you play have small-profit expectation, some players justfold most of these. It really happens that some winning players enter pots with twice as many hands asother winning players, yet their long-range profit is about the same.

Of course, this doesn't mean that either of these types of winners is maximizing his profit. There's muchmore to world-class poker than just how many hands you play.

7. If you are making excessive money catching bluffs or making calls, you most likely aren't calling enough!

You're probably costing yourself money on the somewhat-less profitable calls you didn't make.

Players who take pride in being right when they call are usually losing money in limit poker games. If a pot is 11times as large as the amount it costs you to call, and you expect to win one in 10 times, you will make a long-range profit with this type of call. But you will lose nine times for every one you win. That can get frustrating. But,the point is, if you wait for just the calls you know are extremely profitable, you will need to sacrifice all the othercalls that are reasonably profitable - and that sacrifice can cost you a lot of money. - MC

4th Lecture - Handling Tricky Situations

The following lecture was the fourth Tuesday Session, held October 20, 1998, and later appeared in Card Player magazine.

More From the Classroom: Poker Profit from Tricky Situations

OK, let's continue with our classroom lectures. In the previous two columns, I have taken the speakers notes thatI pass out at my Tuesday Sessions and enhance them especially for Card Player. These 40-minute classroomlectures are designed to add a new weapon each weak to your poker arsenal.

We'll look at the fourth Tuesday Session, held October 20, 1998. The title was…

"Handling Tricky Situations"

Betting second pair in hold 'em. People make key mistakes in hold 'em about whether to bet a pair of thesecond-highest rank on the board. You should not be afraid to make that bet into one or two opponents whenyou're first to act. If you only bet top pair, you are being too conservative.

However, you should routinely check second pair, even with a good kicker, if players behind you bluff toofrequently or are especially deceptive. The bigger your kicker, the more likely you should be to bet. You need tomix it up, though. Sometimes check; sometimes bet. You should be more willing to bet second pair if the topboard card is small, such as 10-8-4, than if it's large, such as A-8-4. (Of course, there are only a few situationswhen you would hold a pair of eights after the flop.)

It's easy to go overboard once you give yourself permission to bet second pair, so you need to strike a happybalance. Against typical opponents, betting about half the time or a little less will adequately mix up your strategy,add to your aura of deceptiveness, and enhance your overall profit.

Seldom call awful-looking cards in seven-card stud. In seven-card stud, you should usually call when you betand are raised on the river. That's because the pot is usually large enough to justify that call. Even though you willnormally lose, you'll win often enough to earn a long-range profit.

But, if you made a legitimate bet with a medium-strong hand and are raised by a player with exposed cards that



look awful, you can usually pass confidently. Most opponents won't try to bluff with hands that show little potentialstrength. They don't think you'll believe them. Therefore, this raise almost always means a strong hand.

Bluffs come more willingly and more often from opponents whose hands look strong but aren't than fromopponents whose hands look weak.

Careless overcalling. A common mistake made by even some advanced players to overcall on the river (lastcard) with the same kinds of medium-strong hands they would make a single call with. Your hand should be muchstronger to overcall.

A very simple way to explain this is to show that the pot odds change dramatically when someone else calls. Let'ssay the pot is $100 after an opponent bets and it costs you $10 to call. This means the pot is laying you $100 to$10 or 10 to 1. That's what we mean by pot odds. In such a situation you would only need to have once chance in11 of winning to break even. More than that, you should make the call. Less than that, you shouldn't. Stillconfused?

OK, suppose you played the same situation just 10 times. You called $10 each time, hoping to win that $100 pot.You figure you were a 9 to 1 underdog, and you were right. As fate would have it, by golly, you won exactly asmany times as you projected for those 10 calls - namely, just once. So, nine times, you lost $10, for a negativetotal of $90. Once you won the $100 you were pursuing. So, overall you won $10 on 10 calls and each call was

theoretically worth $1. Fine. We now see that if you're a 9 to 1 underdog when the pot is laying you 10 to 1, youcan call and make money. Now what?

Here's what. If someone else calls that same pot before you do and you think you have just as good a chance ofbeating the opener as the caller does, you might be tempted to overcall. After all, the pot is now bigger thanbefore. It is now $110, ($100 after the first wager, plus $10 after the other player called). So, an overcall istempting.

But, wait! That caller only added $10 to the pot, but your odds of winning were disproportionately lowered. Why?Well, already said that the caller has just as much a chance of beating the bettor as you do. That means, even ifyou are right and you beat the bettor one in 10 times, you still need to beat the caller. Since you only have a 50percent chance of doing this, your odds are twice as bad. You now only have one chance in 20, not one chancein 10, of winning the pot. That's 19-to-1 against. Is the pot laying you 19-to-1? Heck, no! Only $110 to $10, or 11-to-1. If you call you will be losing forty cents on the dollar. Huh? How do you figure that? Easy. Same way asbefore. Nineteen $10 losses, or $190 negative total. One $110 gain. Total for 20 calls is an $80 loss, whichaverages a $4 loss for each $10 call - or 40 percent of your investment. That's 40 cents on each dollar down thedrain.

And, my friends, this is exactly why so many overcalls don't compute. Most players - even seasonedprofessionals - don't realize that in limit poker their hands need to be very significantly better to overcall than tocall - not just marginally better.

Betting "on the come." In hold 'em, you often start with two suited cards and catch two more of that suit on theflop. If everyone checks to you, whether to take a "free card" qualifies as a tricky situation. Sometimes, you simplyshould check and take the free card.

But, you should usually bet, unless your opponents are very deceptive and likely to check-raise. By betting, you

will often get a free card on the next round where the limits double. And if you connect, you can just keep bettingyour flush, which has gained deceptive value. The same holds true for two cards higher than the board. Then, ifyou pair on the turn (fourth card), keep betting. Otherwise, usually take the free river card.

When to bet weak hands. Betting weak hands into other weak hands is one of the most fundamental talentsyou can master in poker. If you check them, you are likely to be outplayed and surrender the pot.

It's especially important to bet out on the final round when there's a reasonable chance that your opponent is alsovery weak. If you check, you may be bluffed into - and be unwilling to call. That costs you a whole pot! Checkingand hoping to win in weak showdown situations is usually the wrong choice. When you're reasonably sure yourlone opponent is weak, but it's near fifty-fifty whether you can win in a showdown, then the best choice is usuallyto not risk a showdown. Just bet, instead. - MC



5th Lecture - How To Advertise In A Poker Game

P>How To Advertise In A Poker Game

The following lecture was the fifth Tuesday Session, held October 27, 1998, and later appeared in Card Player magazine.

Classroom Lectures: Poker Profit from Tricky Situations

In previous columns, I've taken my classroom lectures at Mike Caro University of Poker and expanded themexclusively for Card Player. We covered Tuesday Sessions one through four. Today, I'm going to do somethingquite different, instead.

Today, we're going to talk about Tuesday Session number five. We'll look at the fifth Tuesday Session, heldOctober 27, 1999. The title was…

"How to advertise in a poker game"

1. Opponents want to call.

Because most opponents come to games looking for reasons to call, you should think of them as shoppers whoare ready to spend their money. When you have a strong hand, think of that hand as a product that you'reseeking to sell.

Fine. Now, here's the secret. You will earn a lot more money in the long run if you make opponents want to callyou when they are having trouble deciding whether to fold. Sure, if they have reasonable hands, they will call nomatter what. That's their nature. But if they have sub-standard hands, they may or may not call. Getting theseplayers holding substandard hands to call you - and know they would not call other players with those samelosing hands - is part of the magic of world class play. Just think how much more money you can earn if you canget two such extra calls every hour!

No, don't just nod. Really think about it! Experts talk about the rarest and most skillful players earning two bigbets an hour in profit. Some say two small bets an hour is more reasonable. Let's middle it and say that in a$10/$20 game, it's $30 an hour and in a $75/$150 game, it's $225.

That's an excellent achievement, and you need to be extremely capable in many facets of poker to achieve this.Additionally, you need the cooperation of weak opponents. But, listen. That $30 or $225 an hour is their target -the number that top pros strive (and often fail) to achieve after years of practice and study. And here I am flat outtelling you that you can get that much, and maybe more, just in extra calls alone!

But, you are only likely to win calls if you have established the right image and advertised correctly. Advertising inpoker is simply the art of convincing opponents to call you with very weak hands because they believe you areapt to be bluffing. So the trick is to bluff a lot less often than these opponents believe you do. (This doesn't meanyou can't ever bluff successfully, however.)

Advertising effectively earns money. Advertising ineffectively - just for show - can actually cost you money.

2. Make it realistic.

Try to make opponents think you are just playing a carefree game when you advertise. If you appear to beadvertising, your strategy may backfire, and if it looks out of character, you may even seem ridiculous. I see toppros try to advertise by playing squeaky tight and rarely coming down with a weak hand and making sure everyone sees it. But that "did you see this?" strategy just looks phony. Few are conned by it.

It is far better to be playful in your demeanor whether you're in a pot or not. You should be willing to gamblefrivolously with break-even hands. You should be a joy to lose to, and joyful when you lose. The attitude I strivefor is, "I just don't care." Opponents are much more willing to buy that attitude and not think that they are beingconned.

3. Be fun to lose to. As I've just said, your opponents are less likely to think you're conning them if you're



a joy to lose to and you don't seem to mind losing. But, beyond that, they will be much more willing to part withtheir money if you don't add psychological punishment to their defeats. Be a gracious winner and loser. If theyplay a poor hand, you can advertise by convincing them you sometimes play the same way (and you've beenlucky doing so).

Instead of criticizing a hand that beats me, which is a mistake some pros make, I often say, "Wow! I didn't thinkyou had that. Believe it or not, I won twice with that same hand yesterday. I don't always play it, but I'm surprisedit's winning so often. Maybe it's the hand of the month!" Laugh and have fun. Think about how different thisattitude is from one that makes your opponents uncomfortable about playing poorly. Also, think about how manyextra weak calls you might win from this opponent in the future, just because you've shown you won't be criticalof bad play and simply because he likes you!

That's right! Opponents will give you extra calls with borderline hands simply because they like you! But this willonly happen if they also think that you are not painful to lose to and that you gamble, too.

4. If you continue to talk about strange plays that you made (but call them good plays), opponentstend to believe you. After all, they've already seen you make these plays.

I get tremendous mileage out of one or two very blatant plays. I like to spread hopeless hands. I want them to beso absurd that players will remember them and giggle with me. If I just play a lot of semi-weak hands, that's not

advertising. That's just doing what they do. And they won't notice.

When you master the art of being playful, you can fold and describe ridiculous hands that "almost won," andopponents will think you really had them, because they saw one or two equally silly plays with their own eyes.Mastering this technique is an art form, and you risk seeming forced and phony unless you practice. But, it'sworth the effort. At best, you can make a single advertising play and make opponents think you're playingfrivolously all the time. This means many bonus calls that build your bankroll.

5. Don't claim that you bluff a lot. Claim that you don't bluff as much as "everyone says." This has thesame effect and is more believable.6. Be careful when you advertise. Your advertising dollar may be wholly or partially wasted if: (a) noteveryone is paying attention; (b) your game is temporarily short handed; (c) you're not going to stay long; (d) yourgame may break; (e) the game is very loose and seems crazy enough that your advertising may not add thatmuch extra. In these cases, I don't bother advertise.7. In tournaments:

Don't advertise if your table will break soon.

Do advertise (if at all) just before the limits increase.

Advertising is creative art. You need to practice. The perfect accomplishment is to get opponents to start talkingabout your plays, so that you don't have to mention them yourself. When this happens, you can profit greatly.Repeating: You should bluff and you should advertise much less often than opponents believe you do. - MC

8th Lecture - How To Get Called By Weak Hands

How To Get Called By Weak Hands The following lecture was the eighth Tuesday Session, held November 17,1998, and later appeared in Card Player magazine.

Classroom Lectures: How to Get a Call When You Want One

Thanks for showing up again. Today we're going to continue our exploration of a series of lectures I've deliveredat Mike Caro University of Poker, Gaming, and Life Strategy. These lectures take place on Tuesday evenings andinclude one-page handouts outlining the key concepts.

"How to get called by weak hands"

1. Why go against the trend? In order to understand where a great deal of your poker profit comes from, youneed to realize that your typical opponent came to the casino to call. Remember, we talked about this last time.Opponents don't come to the poker table hoping to throw hands away. The thrill of poker dictates that most



opponents will have a bias toward calling and against folding.

That's important, and I'll repeat it. Most of your opponents want to call and they do not want to fold. True, almosteveryone gains when weak opponents call more than they should. But, if you go out of your way to exploit theirweakness, you can potentially win much more than anyone else. Conversely, if you go against the grain, swimupstream, sail into the wind - pick one - and decide you want to condition opponents to not call, you mightsucceed. If so, you might launch a career as a bluffer. But that success will not bring you maximized profit. Notagainst typical weak opponents. Not ever.

This doesn't mean you should not bluff. You should. But you need to know when and how. Bluffing simply isn't theright strategy in most situations against most opponents who are eager to call. Period.

Because opponents call too much, you should take advantage of their biggest mistake by encouraging them tocall even more. Occasionally, you can find an ideal situation in which a bluff is the right strategy, but overall, inlimit poker, you should try to make most of your profit from your opponents' greatest weakness - they call toomuch!

2. The great reflex. Your opponent has a calling reflex. This is an almost-automatic response to anything seen,heard, or imagined. Most opponents want to call, and if you give them a reason, they will. In fact, it's very muchlike facing down a rattle snake in the dessert. If you want that critter to strike, just do almost anything to get its

attention. Reach forward, clap your hands, kick up some dust, run, stick out your tongue. Anything! That rattleris predisposed to bite. If you don't want to be bitten, freeze, or back off slowly.

Same goes for poker opponents. If you want to be called, do anything.

You can trigger their calling reflex by jittering, playing with your chips, talking, or doing anything animated. If youdon't want all call, your best bet is to do nothing.

Does this strategy always work? No. If your opponent has a very weak hand, nothing you do is likely to win thecall. And if your opponent has a reasonably strong hand, doing nothing - although it won't increase theprobability of a call - isn't likely to prevent the call. But there's a whole herd of hands in the middle where youropponents can be easily influenced by what you do. And that's where the profit is. When you want a call, dosomething. Do anything. Do it fast.

3. Simple words. Opponents are susceptible to simple words, such as, "I don't think I'm bluffing this time." Eventhough you're denying that you're probably bluffing, you're putting doubt in their head, and they'll call. Composeyour own words to suit your personality, your opponent's personality, and the situation.

If you just blurt, "Call me, I'm bluffing," that's not as good as the more subtle statement that I suggested above.It's too blatant, and your opponent is likely to feel conned and instinctively think, "Oh, sure!" With the "I don'tthink I'm bluffing this time" wording, though, he's just likely just to feel bewildered. You're telling him your notbluffing. But, at the same time, by adding "this time" you are subtly implying that lots of times you do bluff. Itworks.

4. Which path to the truth? What I call "either/or" talk works wonders. Just say, "I think I actually made thisstraight flush, but maybe I missed it," and you'll force your foe's thinking into either/or mode. Either you made a

great hand or you're bluffing. This gives you the luxury of betting a medium hand for value without fearing araise.

Being able to bet without fearing a raise is very important. I call this betting with impunity. When you can do that,you can profitably make many daring wagers where you otherwise would have had to check. I use this often inhold 'em games. Suppose I have the second highest pair and an ace kicker against an aggressive opponent.Now the river card is a third heart. "You're not going to believe this," I say. "I might have called all the way withnine-six. They might even have been the same suit. I'm not going to tell you what suit my cards are, either.Might be spades and I might be bluffing." Faced with this confusing either/or talk, your opponent is not likely torisk a raise. Either you have that flush or you're bluffing with garbage. You'll usually just get a call withouthaving to fear a raise.

What's wrong with a raise? Can't you just throw your second pair away against a raise? No! If you did thatroutinely, your opponents eventually would figure out that they just need to raise you on the river to win most of

the time. Correct strategy dictates that you call most of the time when you're raised on the river - even withhands that are not wonderful. You'll usually lose with this call, but the pot is large enough that you only need towin once in a while to make these calls worthwhile. So, you usually have to call a raise, and it's worth going to



the effort to talk your opponent out of raising if he does hold the better hand.

Another amazing thing about this either/or, bluffing-or-big hand talk is that it will get very weak hands to call. Afterall, they can gamble that you missed the flush. The fact that you actually have the second-highest pair with anace kicker doesn't occur to your opponents, because you've made them use up their limited thinking timepondering whether you made the flush or you didn't. Either/or.

5. Fun as fun can be. As we talked about previously, you need to be fun to play with. That way, you'll earnmaximum calls from opponents who won't find calling you and losing painful. Once you establish that image,you can earn a lot of extra money betting medium hands and being called by very weak hands. You will, in fact,make money with hands other players can't even bet profitably.

6. What can it cost? If you want a call and your opponent is about to pass, do anything. Remember how wetalked about that snake that's just looking for a reason to strike. Well, what if the little critter has finally decidedthat it isn't going to strike. Or, more to the point, what if your opponent has finally decided that he isn't going tocall. Suppose you really want the call. Well, as I said, do anything. Knock over your chips. Jitter. Laugh. It's afreeroll, and you might get the opponent to reevaluate, start thinking all over again, and make the call.

7. Finally. Despite everything I've said today and in the last column, some opponents simply don't call much.Against them, bluff more often and don't bet medium-strong hands aggressively. - MC

9th Lecture - Finding The Best Image For You

Finding The Best Image For You The following lecture was the ninth Tuesday Session, held November 24,1998, and later appeared in Card Player magazine.

Classroom Lectures: Your Image May Matters More Than You Think

It struck me as sad. Sad like the silence of a broken heart. Sad like someone retreating from the poker table forthe last time. No more chips. No more places to get chips. No more ammunition, no more war, no more victories.

Watching it was painful. It was 1972 and Smith, a frail, mid-twenties guy with extra-thick glasses, was leaving the

table. Forever. And Smith smiled as he left - a cover-up smile, faint and falsely hopeful. And he never came back.Inside, deep inside, I felt so bad about the whole thing. Smith had often chatted with me, picked my brain, workedout notebooks full of calculations about which hands were superior. He had won for a while and he had been bothproud and modest. Poker had been his future. But he was giving up that life now, and I knew it.

And I knew why.

Image was why. Not a bad run of cards. Not the lack of discipline. Not the failure to grasp concepts. Not the lackof heart or courage. Image was why. Just image. Maybe Smith is one of the reasons I spend so much timestraying from cold, clear poker tactics. For some people image matters more.

What follows are speaker's notes from my classroom lecture, Tuesday Session #9. As with the previous columnsin this series, this one has been specially enhanced for Card Player. Session nine occurred November 24, 1998.

The title was…

"Finding the Best Image for You"

1. First impressions. There is no one in the whole world who doesn't form quick impressions of others.Even though rationally we acknowledge that it's better to arrive at opinions about others based on evidence, wesimply don't have time to do this. Therefore, other people's images give us clues about what to expect, and -unless our first impressions are proven to be wrong - we act in accordance with these images.

Poker opponents do the same thing, and they can be easily manipulated by your image. The really good thing isthat opponents will marry their early impressions. They are not likely to reevaluate. It takes too much mentalenergy for them to go back and examine again how they think you are playing. So, when you show them somestrange plays early, these will stick in their mind. The rest is simply maintaining an image consistent with those

plays.

I like to confuse opponents. I know they came to the game with a bias toward calling. I always try to capitalize on



this weakness. If I play a very loose game, I can get even more calls from these opponents and win extra moneyon my better hands. Unfortunately, if I play a very loose game, I will lose money. So, the solution is to play amoderately tight and selective game while making my opponents think I am playing loose and undisciplined. Iusually am able to accomplish this. And I do it by show a few bizarre plays early and staying in image thereafter.

This was Smith's problem. The kid always seemed as if he was concentrating and trying to make a well-considered decision. That became his image. And, of course, opponents sensed that he wasn't anyone theyshould gamble against. He won smaller pots than he should have and got bluffed out of pots often andunexpectedly. His image became his undoing.

2. Don't be a victim. We not only use our images to our own advantage, we can sometimes be victims ofother people's images. In poker, you should make sure you are reacting to the way opponents play, not to theway their images suggest they play.

Picture this. A young woman sits in your game. She is wearing lots of jewelry. She is laughing as her boyfriendleaves her to go to a ballgame.

"See ya later, sweetie," he says. "Take these guy's money, OK?"

She says, "I'll try. Anyway, you have a good time and I will, too."

She is really erratic in the way she pushes chips into the pot. It's like she doesn't care. She giggles, too. One ofthe early pots, she even wins, and she is giddy. You create a mental file on her - someone's rich girlfriend here tohave fun, out of her element. Fine.

Time goes on, as time usually does. Twenty minutes. An hour. Three hours. Her personality hasn't changed. But,wait. She's winning! What? Think back. Is she really playing just as frivolously as her first hands suggest? Or isshe playing sensibly, while her image leads you to believe she is playing frivolously?

Be warned. You, too, can be unduly influenced by opposing images. Try to judge opponents by the way theyplay, not by the way their images suggest they play.

3. Pushing players around. Your profit comes from pushing opponents in the direction your imagesuggests. If your image is wild, playful, and frivolous, you must push opponents toward calling. If your image issolid (not usually the best image), you should push opponents toward folding, so you can bluff more.

If you study opponents carefully, you can create a dynamic, fun-to-play-against, not-painful-to-lose-against imagethat still leaves room for you to bluff when the occasion merits. Usually (see today's final point), despite yourloose and unpredictable image that wins calls from most opponents, you can bluff opponents who pridethemselves on being too smart to be conned by you.

4. You might be in the wrong game. In most limit poker games, you'll win more with a "call image" thanwith a "bluff image." If you find yourself in a game where a bluff image works better, fine - but you can probablyfind a more profitable game somewhere else.5. No regard for money? I am an advocate of the "wild image." The more players perceive you ascarefree with little regard for money, the more they will call you. You must couple this type of image with

kindness! If you seem mean spirited, your opponents may still call on the last betting round, but they'll choosebetter hands to play against you and, in general, they'll be tougher opponents. Always make losing as painless aspossible for your foes.6. Be comfortable with your image. You don't need to use the wild image. Make sure you're comfortablewith whatever image you decide to use. You can get a lot of the wild-image benefits just by seeming deceptiveand by exaggerating your betting movements. Making bets extra crisp draws attention to yourself and makes youappear more lively, even if you don't have the wild personality to go with it. You don't need to put yourself "onstage." Just make sure you're never a "non-entity."

This would have been the best advice I could have given Smith back in 1972. But, I didn't.

7. Stop that bluff. A tight image does more than allow you to bluff. It also invites bluffs! This means youmust call more often if you choose that image. A loose image does more than win extra calls. It also intimidatesopponents and makes them less likely to bluff! Players seldom select wild or loose opponents as bluffing targets.

8. Bluff the smart ones. As I've said, you can still bluff with a wild image. You need to be very selective,though. Target those who think they are too smart for your image. If they think they can "see right through" your



advertising, you can bluff them. I do it all the time! - MC

10th Lecture - When To Fold Strong Hands

When to Fold Strong Hands The following lecture was the 10th Tuesday Session, held December 1, 1998, and later appeared in Card Player magazine.

Classroom Lectures: Folding Strong Hands for Pure Profit

. Calling a raise on the river. One of the most costly mistakes made by experienced players is that they calltoo frequently on the final betting round against a bet and a raise. If you could tally all calls made by all players in thissituation, you would quickly see that an overcall against the final-round raise loses money.

Why? It's because players don't seem to realize how much extra strength they need to make this call. They get caughtup in the moment and are awed by the size of the pot. But, actually, the pot size is much smaller, relative to the sizeof the call, than it would be if there had been no raise. That's because the call costs double, and the pot is only one

bet larger than it would have been without the raise. This means, for a very big pot, your pot odds are only about halfas good, but your hand needs to be much stronger than usual to win. The second player is probably figuring thebettor for a big hand, and yet he is still raising. This tells you that your run-of-the-mill strong hand isn't enough in mostsuch situations. You need extra strength to call.

Also, remember that most players who are squeezed between you and the first bettor are reluctant to raise withoutsuper-strong hands. They'd rather play it safe, and maybe win a call behind. (Beware that some tricky players will tryto freeze you out of the pot by raising if they think the bettor might be bluffing, but this is rare.)

The point is this: I have do doubt that most readers understand what I just said and that it isn't news to them. Still, thefact remains that most sophisticated players (and almost all weak players) call far too often on the river against araise. If I could take a statistical sample of all such calls ever made in poker games, I'm betting that the result wouldbe a significant loss.

2. Getting over-carded. In hold 'em, you should almost routinely fold any large pair if the flop contains twodifferent higher ranks.

This is another great mistake made by many players who otherwise pride themselves on correct decisions. Whenyou're dealt J J in the pocket and the board is A Q 4 , you should not hesitate to make a laydown againsta bet. It's simply not a big laydown. Of course, there are certain players and certain situations in which you mightmake exceptions and call or even raise. But your basic strategy - the one you should choose in the absence of factorsindicating a contrary decision - when you have a high pair and two higher cards of two different ranks flop should beto fold.

This is much different from having a less significant pair when two (or even three) higher unpaired ranks flop. In thatcase, it's not the fact that those ranks are higher than your pair, but how much higher that should dictate yourdecision. Especially if there has been raising before the flop, high cards are more dangerous and more likely to pair

your opponents than medium cards. Therefore, if you hold 6 6 and the flop is 9 7 2 , you should not foldquite so routinely.

/mcu/mculib_lectures.asp

3. Beware of garbage. In seven-card stud (and other games, too) you should willingly lay down strong handswhen you are unexpectedly raised by a player with a "garbage" board. These players tend not to bluff, because theyaren't showing any strength to make it believable.

4. When bluffing is less likely. Tend to fold big hands that look like they might be big hands to your opponents.Opponents are less likely to bluff you if you have strength exposed.

However, folding with too much strength exposed is dangerous. It blatantly shouts to opponents that you are willing tolay down big hands and tempts them to bluff unexpectedly at your expense in the future. (See point #6, too.)

5. Image matters. The looser and more unpredictable your image is, the more successfully you can fold stronghands. Think about it. You, yourself, are less likely to bluff or bet borderline hands into loose or tricky opponents. Your



opponents think the same way. So, when they bet, they typically have stronger than average hands against yourloose and treacherous image.

6. Consider calling. You should consider calling, even if the call is not quite profitable, if your opponents know youhave a strong hand. That's because, one of the worst things you can do is make your opponents think you make"considered" laydowns. That's just inviting unexpected bluffs - and long-range disaster.

In fact, I try never to let my opponents know that I ever make carefully considered decisions, period. I want my imageto be one of impulsiveness, perhaps that of a loose cannon, firing everywhere, at everything, not aiming, not caring.When I stop to ponder, count pots, think long, I'm destroying that image. And that image (and it's only an image andnot reality, remember) is precisely what fools opponents into providing me with extra profit.

. Don't show. You should never show a good laydown. Don't show, even if you're proud of it. Showing goodlaydowns also invites unexpected bluffs later.. Best times to fold. There are two types of players that are especially profitable to make laydowns againstwhen you hold medium hands with which you might otherwise call. They are (1) non-bluffers who bet and (2) non-bettors who raise.

ou should fold against the non-bluffers because typical calls that are barely profitable earn a big share of that profit bycatching bluffs. When there are no potential bluffs to catch, you need a much stronger hand to justify a call. And playerswho are reluctant to bet are typically reluctant to raise with marginally strong hands, also. So if you have a marginal

raise-calling hand against them, you should fold. You need something much stronger. - MC11th Lecture - Pro Tricks For Extra Profit

The following lecture was the eleventh Tuesday Session, held December 8, 1998, and later appeared in Card Playe magazine.

Classroom Lectures: Sophisticated Ways to Earn More ProfitBy the time you read this, the 30th Tuesdayclassroom session will have been concluded at Mike Caro University of Poker, Gaming, and Life Strategy. Thosehappen every week and, by special agreement with Card Player magazine, I'm greatly enhancing the simple one-page notes that are passed out at those sessions and turning them into full columns.

So far, everything that I've taught you in this series has been fairly straightforward. All the logic made sense. Today,I'm going to ask you to rely on my experience and accept a few theories about how to play against opponents that aremore controversial. Some of these tips people could debate, and their arguments would sound quite reasonable.That's why I'm asking you to trust me. After all, I care about you more than they do. Don't snicker - I really do.

e following is based on Tuesday Session #11 which took place December 8, 1998. The topic was…

A basic game plan is your lifeline for survival in an endless ocean. A simplified basic strategy demandsfewer decisions. Well, OK, this isn't one of those controversial pieces of advice that I was telling you about. But it is

important.

Suppose you're just playing simple, good poker. Nothing fancy. Imagine it. There you are, sitting at a poker table day afteray, playing just about as solid and simple a game as any human ever played in history. And you're winning. Got the

picture?

Fine. Now, you start to alter your pace a little. You try to adjust to your opponents. You raise a little more whenever theurge comes. And these adjustments help to humble your opponents and bolster your bankroll. So, as you begin to makemore and more exceptions in order to obtain ever greater profit, you find yourself straying farther and farther from youroriginal game plan. You're drifting away from where you started.

But you're drifting deliberately, and you hope that doing so will improve your profit. But what if you drift in the wrongirection? What if the adjustments you've made have put you off course? What if you're no longer making a profit? Well, ifou don't remember your original strategy, you can't return to it. You can't grab that basic-game-plan lifeline, and you

might drown in the ocean. Therefore, you need to define a basic strategy for survival, a lifeline - so you can always returno it. It's always best to be conscious of when you're making an exception and why. That why needs to be "to make



money," not "to show off" - which is how, unfortunately, many would-be pros misuse additional knowledge.

2. Your advertisements will lose most of their value if the play seems reasonable to loose opponents.Therefore, reducing your starting-hand requirements a little to advertise is often a poor idea. Make mostadvertisements sparing and noteworthy.

It's simply a bad idea to try to make loose opponents think you're not tight by playing hands that appear a littleworse than average. That seldom gets noticed and won't make an impression even if it does. Loose players don'tsee your slightly weaker hands as substandard. They see them as stronger than what they play, and they won'tbe impressed. They'll just yawn. If you're going to advertise, advertise!

3. Most players are afraid to raise with a weak hand on the last round. But they would willingly call a pot halfthat size with a very marginal hand, hoping the opponent were bluffing. Well, a raise costs no more in relativesize than a call would if the pot were half as big. In fact, if your hand is absolutely hopeless and you think youropponent may be bluffing, a raise is often the best choice! It's scary, and it will lose money most of the time, but itearns profit overall.

I very often use this play with broken straights and flushes, when my opponent may be bluffing and a call isunlikely to win even if he is.

4. Find opportunities to "bet with impunity." Betting with impunity is one of my favorite concepts. It means thatyou can bet for value without worrying about a raise from a weaker hand. This happens when you have amoderately strong hand and your opponents fear that you might have an even better one.

It's always easier to make a value bet if you know you're unlikely to be raised. For instance, you should use flushcards as a smokescreen to bet a strong pair or two small pair. Betting with impunity can be effective before thefinal betting round when you're last to act. Then, whenever you are checked into on the next round, check alongif you don't improve and bet if you do.

5. It's all right to check and just call with extremely strong hands. This is half of a sandbag - what I call a"Slippery Sandbag." Instead of checking and raising, you check and call. It is especially useful if your opponentmight be bluffing. Wait until the double-limit betting rounds, or even until the final betting round, to raise.

A key advantage of the slippery sandbag is that if your opponent is bluffing, you won't lose future-round profit byraising too early and chasing him out of the pot.

6. On the final betting round, be careful about raising in the middle position. If you're in the middle on the finalbetting round, only raise with (1) extremely strong hands (and not always) and (2) weak hands when you'rebluffing. Most semi-powerful hands tend to make more long-range profit if you either call (usually) or fold(occasionally).

The reasons for this is not obvious and goes beyond the scope of today's discussion, but analysis shows againand again that this very common raise - when you're in the middle of two opponents on the final betting round - isseldom your best choice when you hold a fairly strong, but not extraordinarily strong, hand.

7. Tend to "cap" from the final position. Often the house rule stipulates a four-bet maximum number of allowable

bets (a bet and three raises) in multi-way pots. The final raise is called the "cap." On all but the final bettinground, there is much more incentive to cap if you're in the last position than in an early position. That's because,even if you don't think you're a big favorite to have the best hand, you can still make that final raise withoutfearing a raise in return. This leaves you with the prospect of having everyone check to you on the next bettinground. If that happens, you can either take a free card or bet. It will be your option as you exercise the power ofposition. You earned this luxury by capping from last position.

8. With borderline hands, when you're last to act, fold unless your call closes the betting. Otherwise, you'reoften in too much jeopardy.

I talk a lot about borderline hands. Those are ones that are so marginal that there is no obvious best decision.When the borderline choice is between calling and folding, I often look to a single consideration to help medecide. What is it? If my call will close the action, I'll call. Otherwise, I'll fold. What do I mean by close the action?

Well, if I bet and there's a raise and then a call, my call will close the action. Nobody can raise again after my

call. But if I bet and there's a call and then a raise, I have to be very careful. If I call, the original caller can stillreraise. The raiser may even then raise again before the action returns to me. This close-the-action factor is



especially valid in blind games when you're in the big blind. Before calling with that borderline hand, ask yourselfif that call will close the action. If the answer is yes, go ahead and call. If the answer is no, fold.

9. Early round advice. On early betting rounds, from the last position, tend to be very liberal about betting marginalhands back into players who seldom sandbag (check-raise). You can take tactical control of the pot by betting. Infact, you can often save money by being last to act on subsequent betting rounds, because opponents willfrequently check to you. Then you get to decide whether to take the next card for free or to wager. - MC

12th Lecture - When Not To Raise

When Not To Raise The following lecture was the 12th Tuesday Session, held December 15, 1998, and later appeared in Card Player magazine.

Classroom Lectures: Stop Making Bad Raises

There are two equally valid approaches to raising. You can meet every single opportunity with an attitude that silently asks,"Why should I raise?" You then try to see if there are any reasons why a raise - rather than a call or a fold - would be

appropriate. Or you can ask, "Why shouldn't I raise?" You then try to see if there are any reasons why a call or a fold -ratherthan a raise - would be appropriate right now.

One way, you're assuming that you won't raise and try to argue yourself into it. The other way, you're assuming you willraise, and you try to argue yourself out of it. Conceptually, either of these approaches should lead to the same conclusion,provided all factors are weighed correctly. But, however you go about your decision making, raising at the wrong times canbe very costly. We're about to talk about that.

Today's column is based on Tuesday Session #12 which took place December 15, 1998. The topic was…

"When Not to Raise"

1. Always ask yourself the reason before you take any assertive action in poker. If you're betting, make sure you know

why. Just a vague notion is not good enough. Justify your choices. Once you get in this habit, you're apt to discover thatyou have been taking actions for the wrong reasons - or for no reasons at all.

You should do the same exercise before you call and - especially - before you raise. There are more experienced playersthan you might expect raising for faulty reasons, or without a clue as to the reason. From today on, unless you have areason to raise, don't. That means never. Quite simply, I'm asking you to adopt the approach to raising where you firstassume that you won't raise and then argue yourself into a raise if you can.

Two reasons to raise. Excluding the psychological aspect of poker, there are really only two basic reasons toraise. (1) To build a bigger pot, and (2) to increase your chance of winning.

Sometimes you need to evaluate both these factors to decide on a tactic. Building a bigger pot means more money if youwin, and is often the best choice for a strong hand, but it sometimes actually decreases your chances of winning that pot.This can happen, for instance, if you build a bigger pot by not raising with an exceptionally strong hand, inviting many

players in. You are then more likely to lose, because there are more opponents remaining who might get lucky and beatyou. But you're hoping that the increased risk will be overwhelmed by increased profit from a bigger pot if you do win.Conversely, if you raise from an early position, you may be making the pot smaller by chasing opponents out, but you willtend to win more often.

In addition to these two key strategic reasons to raise, you might sometimes raise to enhance your image - and profitlater. When you make an image raise, you are working toward being the one force at your table to be reckoned with. It isnot necessary that the raise will add an expectation of extra profit on that pot itself. The extra profit can come fromsubsequent pots, because your raise has helped to build a commanding image that lets you manipulate your opponents.So, when you begin with the premise that you will not raise, image can sometimes be a factor in changing your mind. Butbe careful. Don't let yourself be argued into a raise frivolously. If you don't really need to enhance your image right now,or if the raise would be too costly for the benefits, just call or even fold.

Be careful whom you drive out. You should usually not raise if you expect to drive out the weak hands andremain against the strong ones. This, unfortunately, is a common result of "thin the field" strategy. Often you would preferto play against fewer opponents. Some hands simply make more profit that way. But what if your raise will thin the field in



the wrong way? What if the most likely callers are those you least want to play against and the most likely folders arethose you most want to play against. In that case, a raise can be wrong, even though you did want to thin the field andplay against fewer opponents. That's because you didn't want to thin the field if it meant playing against only opponentswith the stronger hands. And that's often the case. This is why - in general - I'm not an advocate of thin-the-field raisingfor many common situations for which it is advised.

Hold 'em raising pre-flop. Before the flop in hold 'em most players raise too often. This is not just guesswork, buta viewpoint I've formed after studying hold 'em opponents for many years and comparing what they do to the ideal

strategies I've devised through computer research and other analysis.

I believe that you should often just call and see what develops. Since most of a hold 'em hand blossoms on the flop, youreally aren't usually raising with the advantage you assume. This doesn't mean you shouldn't be very aggressive in short-handed games and when attacking the blinds from late positions when no one else has entered the pot. But it does meanin full and nearly full games, there are many times when you should opt to just call before the flop, rather than raise.

Also, for a different reason, in seven-card stud it's better to just call with self-disguising small "rolled up" trips. If I start with5-5-5 with a king and a queen waiting to act behind me, I'll usually just call. Raising looks suspicious and makes playersthink that I might have greater than a pair of fives. If I just call, I'm likely to be called or even raised by weak hands thatmight otherwise have folded. With rolled-up three-of-a-kind, do what would look most natural to your opponents who areonly seeing your upcard. If that upcard is high relative to other exposed cards, your raise will look natural and opponentswill not even think that you necessarily have a pair. In that case, you should usually raise. But, with a small three-of-a-kind to start, you should seldom raise.

When opponents are deceptive. One of the biggest mistakes in poker is routinely raising with marginal handsagainst deceptive foes. Since a raise with a marginal hand is a borderline decision that won't earn much extra profit - onaverage - even in ideal situations, it will often lose money against deceptive opponents. How come? It's because thoseopponents won't behave. You can't count on them to just call with stronger-than-average hands. Instead, they are likely toget full value by raising with their marginally strong hands, and they may occasionally even be bluffing. These possibilitiescan often remove all the value and more out of that "value raise."

Also, don't raise in middle position on the last round with anything except a super strong hand or a bluff. You'll make moreby just calling and giving the next player a chance to overcall. This advice isn't obvious, but it's the answer. Researchproves that middle-position raises, in most common situations on the final betting rounds, should seldom be made withhands of secondary strength. Save these raises for super powerful hands or for occasional bluffs.

When to steal blinds. If the "blind" players are aggressive and unpredictable, abandon most blind stealing. Thebest types of opponents to steal against are tight and timid. Always remind yourself of that before you barge into the potwith your precious chips.

Handling a bluffer. Don't raise with strong hands on an early betting round against a frequent bluffer. Let himcontinue to bluff. This strategy can sometimes work against you, but overall you'll make more money if you allow youropponent to exercise his most glaring weakness - in this case, bluffing too much.

Wrong people to raise. Don't chase away your profit by making daring raises against solid players when weakplayers remain to act after you. When you do this, you are just chasing out the wrong people. One concept of poker thatis seldom talked about is that you should be much more willing to raise when a loose player has bet and tight playersremain to act behind you than when a tight player has bet and loose players remain to act behind you. The reason is thatoften you'd like to be able to chase others out and face only the loose bettor. But you seldom want to chase the looseplayers out and face only the tight player.

What if you're losing? One of the most important lessons is to stop "value raising" when you're losing. Thesedaring bets for extra profit only work when your opponents are intimidated. When opponents see that you're losing,

they're inspired and they become more daring and deceptive. And as we discussed in point #5, you definitely do not wantto be making marginal raises against deceptive foes.

There is a lot more to the science of raising. But you'll be on the path to mastering it if you always make sure you have areason before you raise. - MC

13th Lecture - Small Edges That Add Up

Small Edges That Add Up The following lecture was the 13th Tuesday Session, held December 22, 1998, and later appeared in Card Player magazine.

Classroom Lectures: Huge Poker Profit from Small Advantages



On the northeast corner of Main and Broadway, in a galaxy far, far away, is a store named Pete's Poker Trinkets.Prices range from $1 to $10. Since most customers buy more than one trinket, the average sale is $17.42, andthe average profit above cost and expenses for each sale is $3.03. (By the way, the quality of the trinkets issurprisingly good, and I am recommending Pete's Poker Trinkets to my readers.)

For years, there was one poker item for sale at Pete's that had a higher price. It was a set of solid gold pokerchips the owner Paul (who had named the store after Pete, his parrot) once purchased from a homeless sailor for$10,000. Paul was asking $15,000 for the poker chips. A year went by, then two, then five. Nobody bought thegold chips.

Finally one day the richest man on the planet walked into the store. He didn't buy the gold chips either. So, moreyears passed. Then a frail little boy came to shop after school, hand in hand with his matronly mother.

"Mommy, buy me those chips, please," said the frail little boy.

"But, honey," consoled his matronly mother, "you know I don't have $15,000. Remember, we talked about howwe would have to budget more sensibly since your wonderful father passed on."

"Can't you just look in your purse and see? Maybe you've got more money than you think."

"Don't be silly, darling. You know Mommy doesn't carry fifteen thousand dollars around in her purse." But just tohumor her beloved, fatherless son, she dumped the entire contents of her purse on the countertop, separated themoney from her hairbrush, chewing gum, and condoms and began counting.

Finally, she shook her head and said, "See, honey. I told you we don't have enough money. I only have fourteenthousand, nine hundred and ninety-two dollars."

Watching this, the owner Paul - being a shrewd businessman and not wanting to see all this money leave hisstore - steps up and says, "Ma'am, let me make a suggestion. You obviously are eight dollars short of the fifteengrand you need for the poker chips, but we have some really nice decks of cards for a dollar each."

The mother examines the decks and offers to buy three for 90 cents each, which the owner quickly accepts,

wisely knowing that he could net a profit of 18 cents.

So, one more day passed and then, by golly, the owner finally did sell his gold chips for $15,000 to the homelesssailor who had originally owned them. On that night, his wife said, "Let's celebrate! You made a big profit today."

And then Paul said something I will never forget (which is all the more remarkable when you consider that Iwasn't even there to hear it). Paul said to his wife, "It isn't one big sale that keeps us in business. It's all the littlesales. When you add them all together, they have made us rich. There are so many small sales and so few bigones that the small sales are much more profitable."

His wife smiled faintly and nodded in agreement. Suddenly, she understood this. And, if you want to maximizeyour poker profit, you need to understand it, too.

The title of today's lecture is…

"Small Edges that Add Up"

1. Opportunities for big edges during the play of a hand are relatively rare. The chance to earn a fullextra bet through expert play only happens once or twice an hour - or even less! The opportunity tosnare a whole pot through expert play may only happen once in a session. Those are big edges.Moderate edges are also not as common as many players suppose. But small edges are very common,and these small "expert decisions" are often more profitable on a per-hour basis than the major ones.After all, 30 small, $1 edges are worth more than two large $10 edges.

2. Not-so-weak raises. A major advantage I have in a poker game is that I can often open or raise theblinds with hands that seem too weak for my position. Remember, the fewer players that remain to actbehind you, the less strict your opening standards need to be. For instance, in a particular hold 'emgame, I might estimate that I need at least a king-jack of mixed suits to raise from three seats before the

dealer position. Fine. But if I'm four seats before the dealer position, this same hand is not quite



profitable. Then what?

Well, then I'll need to pass. But, wait! What if I can eliminate a player as a possible contestant? Now, I'mmore or less (but not exactly for technical reasons you don't need to worry about today) in the position Ineed to be to raise. That's a small edge.

Sometimes I am able to eliminate two or three (and rarely more) players by watching them before theyact. This allows me to earn a profit by raising the blinds or opening the betting with hands I could nototherwise have played. Sometimes the tells are not strong, but I reason that two half tells are worth onewhole player missing.

Among other things, players are likely to fold if they're (1) Staring at chips, (2) reaching for chips, (3)staring at cards, or (4) conspicuously watching you. They are likely to play if they're (1) Ignoring chips,(2) ignoring cards, (3) staring away, or (4) especially quiet or still.

3. Wait to rebuy. Don't buy more chips if you have just enough to take the blinds or even a little extra.You'll maximize profit by playing short money and seeing the showdown without being eliminatedthrough betting.

Yes, there can be power in having enough chips to cover all bets. The stronger a player you are relativeto your competition, the more you should tend to keep a lot of chips on the table. However, there is alsopower in having short stacks and in being able to go all-in. Often this can save you a pot you would haveotherwise lost. When you fold a hand, you will never win the pot. But if you're all in with a hand youwould have folded, you will sometimes win the pot. That's the power of short money, and one time thisadvantage really comes into play is when you're about to take the blinds. Therefore, it's often better towait until after your blinds before rebuying.

4. Earning that call. An exaggerated betting motion and chips splashed or spread chaotically will increaseyour chances of being called. Using this method, you can even bet some hands for value that wouldotherwise be slightly unprofitable. It's another small edge!

Never forget that most opponents come with a bias toward calling. Anything you do that makes themsuspicious increases your chance of being called. Therefore, against most opponents, when you know

you have the better hand, a flashy or noisy wager is more likely to earn a call than a calm and quiet one.

5. Did the hand begin short handed? If a hand starts shorted handed, you don't need as much strengthto raise in the same position as you do if the hand starts full and becomes shorthanded. That's becauseplayers who voluntarily pass can be assumed more likely to have folded weak cards than strong ones.On average, this leaves strength among remaining players. I call this the bunching factor. When the dealbegins short handed, this factor is not in play.

6. A better seat. If you're in a good game, but opponents have seen you lose and are inspired, you cansometimes "correct" your image simply by changing seats and announcing that you feel confident inyour new chair. This has nothing to do with superstition on your part - maybe on theirs.

7. Hesitation."He who hesitates is lost" applies to poker. Don't hesitate when you call and are worried about anovercall. And generally don't hesitate when you bluff. Opponents tend to interpret hesitation asuncertainty, and they are more likely to call. - MC

14th Lecture - Bewildering Your Opponents

Bewildering Your Opponents The following lecture was the 14th Tuesday Session, held December 29, 1998,and later appeared in Card Player magazine.

Classroom Lectures: Huge Poker Profit from Small Advantages

I posted this true story to my favorite Internet newsgroup, rec.gambling.poker, the day after it happened lastmonth. Before we get to today's classroom lecture, I'd like to share it with you, too.



Getting called for $150 by an eight-high in hold 'em and another classroom lecture

Last night I managed to get called for $150 by eight-high (8-3 suited) on the final (river) card in a $75/$150-limithold 'em game. The opponent -- a pleasant but boisterous man of about 50 -- had been drinking, but I still thinkthis illustrates the power of some of the psychological concepts I teach. It happened like this...

Before the flop, I call with 8-8 in middle position with no one else having entered the pot. I vary my strategy in thiscircumstance - sometimes raising, sometimes calling, and even rarely folding when I have a strong-acting playerwaiting to act - but this time I decided to call.

The man I will eventually coax into making the call on the river with 8-3 accepts a free ride in the big blind. Thereare no other players active. Flop is K-6-6, two-suited, giving the opponent a flush draw - which would become alikelihood that was apparent to me the second time he checked and called.. He checks. I bet. He calls. Turn cardis another king. He checks. I bet. He calls. River card is an offsuit 5 -- so board is now K-6-6-K-5 with no flushpossible. My opponent has 8-3 - as I'll soon discover for certain.

He checks. I bet. He starts to fold as he says, "What do you have?" I hesitate and answer, "I have a good hand,"in a tone intended to be doubted. Maybe I can get an ace or even a queen to call. Then I add, as if composing onthe spot and just wanting to continue with the next hand, "I have a pair of eights." The truth (which would get me a20-minute suspension in some tournaments that have the ridiculous no-telling-the-truth-about-your-hand rule).

"You don't have a pair of eights," he declares, spreading his 8-3 face-up on the table. He is in the process offolding, of course. Many people would just show their eights here to prove he was wrong. After all, he isn't goingto call with an eight-high nothing. Is he? Well, I sense opportunity. "Either that or I have 7-4 suited, " I muse. Hehesitates, and I set the psychological trap by feigning slight desperation. "I'm just kidding," I bluster. "I've got thatbeat really bad… I think."

You need to understand that I don't really expect to win this call, but the feeling is like having some big ol' marlinon the line that is too much for your tackle. You're probably not going to land it, but it's worth a try. "Either I have apair of eights or I have 7-4 and you'll win," I declare, trying to bring his decision into focus for him as he begins tofold again.

But you can't just leave a statement floating like that or the opponent will think he's being conned and will fold.

This is all in the tone of voice and the timing. I ask, "Which do you think it is? I've been playing poker for a longtime and I don't usually bet 7-4 in this situation, I'll tell you that!" Now, he perceives that I'm trying to talk him outof the call, not into it. This is key to proper psychology here.

He begins to fold for a third time. But I interrupt his action with, "You don't want to be calling with THAT hand.That's a terrible hold 'em hand." Again he ponders. Finally, again, he decides to fold. But I interrupt this action bythrowing a $5 chip across the table and saying, "Let's not slow up the game," although this whole interaction hasonly taken, perhaps, 20 seconds. "I'll give you that chip if you'll throw your hand away." He immediately declinesthe chip and calls $150. Perhaps those who think of poker as a purely tactical, chess-like game where psychologyplays only a secondary role should ponder that true story.

Since we're running short of space, I won't add much to the single-page handout that accompanied my 14thTuesday Session on December 29, 1998. But I don't need to, because it makes perfect sense and complementsthe you just read.

"Bewildering your opponents"

1. No opponents are immune to psychological manipulation. "No one ever went broke underestimatingthe taste of the American people." - H. L. Mencken. And no pro poker player ever went brokeunderestimating the common sense of his opponents.

Most opponents, even experienced ones who should know better, are easily bewildered bypsychological ploys designed to make them think that you play hands you don't. You should be aware,though, that if you're not really as talented psychologically as you think you are, your actions riskproviding more value to observant opponents than you gain through manipulation. In other words, makesure you're actually in command and not just providing tells. Against the very best opponents, it may bebetter to forego manipulative actions in order to be less easily read.

2. Make them back off. Get opponents to worry about what you're going to do next. You can do this by



making unusual plays that stick in their minds or by making all bets sudden and decisive. This latter trick,which is a good compromise for those who feel uncomfortable "being onstage," works very well to limitopponents' tendencies to bet or raise with small advantages. When you can get strong opponents tostop doing that - because they're worried about you, you've taken them off their best game anddiminished their profit.

3. You're the one. Try to become the one force to be reckoned with at your table. You know you'veachieved this when you often see players sneak a peek in your direction before betting, raising, or

calling.4. A better image. If opponents think that you're dangerous, but that you know what you're doing, you've

gained some psychological leverage. But, you gain much more psychological leverage if your opponentsthink you're dangerous and you don't know what you're doing. Opponents predictably run for cover andhold their fire against a "loose cannon."

You need to put your ego aside and allow your opponents to think you are playing poorly or are justlucky. I'm often telling my opponents how badly I play - that I'm just having fun - to help them falselyconclude the one or two bizarre plays I make are indicative of my overall game plan. I even say, "Don'tcriticize me or tell anyone else I play like this. It would ruin my reputation! If you want me to play good, Iwill, but then I might take your chips." This psychology usually leads to me taking their chips anyway,and it has another great benefit. It empowers opponents to play poorly. If I'm asking them not to becritical of my play, they believe I'm not likely to be critical of theirs. And that means they can get intoaction by playing substandard hands without embarrassment - which, deep in their souls, is really what

most players really came to the casino to do.

5. Raising blind. One of my favorite tactics is to raise the blinds (or just raise from a late position if thereare no blinds) without looking at my cards. The maneuver makes it look like you don't care much aboutmoney and makes opponents think twice before they attack you. They become predictable and youbecome the force to be reckoned with. And, actually, you're not sacrificing much profit, since you wouldhave raised with many hands anyway, and the substandard ones are not huge underdogs.

If the small blind has the habit of almost always raising by big blind heads up, I will frequently reraisewithout looking. How much of a disadvantage is this to me? Not much at all. Since my opponent almostalways raises, his hand is almost random from my point of view. Theoretically, I am almost raising arandom hand with another random hand, and I will have a positional advantage - being last to act -through all remaining betting rounds. This reraise without looking provides large psychological returnsfor a little cost.

6. A daring reraise. When a fairly aggressive opponent check-raises me on an early betting round, I oftenraise again with hands that would normally take slightly the worst of it. This makes me seem morebewildering in the future, and the cost is minimal. It's likely that if I don't have the best hand, I'll bechecked to on the next round, and - if I'm still trailing - I might even recover the "lost" bet by checkingand seeing a free card.

7. Select your audience. Tend to select weak opponents for advertising plays. Your stronger foes tend notto realize that they are being excluded from the "giveaway" money, and they call unprofitably on futurehands.

8. When to advertise. Tend to advertise when opponents seem to have weak hands. You'll still get fullpsychological value, and you often stumble into a winning hand! - MC

15th Lecture - Extra Profit In The Blinds

Extra Profit In The Blinds The following lecture was the 15th Tuesday Session, held January 5, 1999, and later appeared in Card Player magazine

Playing the Blinds Correctly: Thousands of Dollars a Year in Pure Profit

It doesn't matter what kind of poker you're playing - hold 'em, Omaha, lowball - if there are one or more blind bets,powerful concepts come into play. Often blinds are worth attacking. Often blinds are worth defending. Butbecause so much of the profit you will earn or fail to earn centers around decisions involving the blinds, weshould take some time today to examine what's what.

Blind bets are simply another way of making sure there is something of value to fight over before the cards are



dealt. You are required to make these bets in order to stimulate action. An ante serves the same function ingames where blind bets are not used. Sometimes both antes and blind bets are used together. The title of my15th Tuesday Session was…

"Extra Profit in the Blinds"

The source of profit. In a blind game, most profit comes from correct play in the blinds and against the blinds.The blinds are a required sacrifice, and except in short-handed games where skilled players can profit, you willlose money playing while your blinds. In a full-handed game, this specifically means that if you are required to putup, say, $50 as a blind bet, then even if you play perfectly from that point on, you won't earn enough in profitexpectation to overcome that initial hit. You will lose money and if that is the only hand you will ever play, youshould not play at all.

Of course, there is no overall disadvantage to taking the blinds among equal players. That's because the playerssacrifice in turn and everyone eventually has to suffer the same number of blind bets. Despite this disadvantageof making a required blind bet, you can profit greatly by losing less money in your blinds. Since so much of yourdollar action comes when you're in the blinds or in a late position attacking the blinds, learning how to play thesesituations is monumentally important.

Many hands. You'll play more hands in the blinds than in any other positions. You'll play more handsattacking the blinds than from early positions - assuming the game isn't so loose that you seldom get a chance toattack. This may seem obvious, but the implications are harder to grasp. In short, most of the profit you will evermake comes from powerful and frequent decisions you make regarding the blinds.

Blinds and image. We talk a lot about the importance of image. For maximum profit, you need to show that

you're willing to gamble. Then, opponents call you with weak hands, supplying you with extra money you wouldn'tearn otherwise. The main flaw in your opponents is that they call too much. For this reason, an image that allowsextra bluffs isn't usually as profitable as one that lures extra calls

One of the best and most economical times to enhance your image is in the blinds. The advantages are that (1)everyone is watching you because you are the "target" who acts last on the first betting round, (2) you can playweaker hands aggressively (although you will usually opt not to do so except against the small blind or in a late-

position war), and (3) opponents simply tend not to remember that you were in the blind, so you get "credit" forplaying weak hands when you got in for half price or even for free.

When to attack. You should attack the blinds more aggressively if they are either too loose or too tight. If

they're too tight, you can sometimes bluff with total garbage. If they're too loose, you can bet semi-strong, butweaker than normal, hands and still make a profit if they call.

This runs contrary to the almost-universally-accepted, but flawed, notion that you should play loose against tightopponents and tight against loose opponents.

A great tactic. Try re-raising with any semi-strong hand against a mid-position or late position player when

you're on or just before the button. You'll benefit from chasing out the blinds and letting you "split" this money withthe original raiser, by enhancing your image, and by putting yourself in a position to act last on all future bettingrounds.

Small blind calling. When the big blind isn't particularly aggressive and somebody has just called, you shouldusually call as the small blind. Even many weak hands will earn money, because it only costs you half a bet tocall, and the average loss on those hands is less than that. For the same reason, you should usually call a singleraise in the big blind if no one can still act behind you. With borderline calling hands in the big blind - ones youcan either fold or play without dramatically affecting your expected profit - here's how to resolve the dilemma: (1)Call if the first opponent was the raiser; (2) Fold if any other opponent was the raiser. Why? Because if anyoneexcept the first player voluntarily entering the pot raised, this means that others will have a chance to reraisefollowing your call. But when the first player raised and everyone else called, your borderline call is safer andmore profitable.

Don't raise. Do not exercise your right to raise with the live blind very often. It's usually correct to just call with

medium-strong hands and see what develops. However, tend to raise often if the small blind is the only caller.



You'll have position throughout the hand.

Also, for the same reasons, you can reraise very liberally as the big blind when the small blind raises. I use thisplay almost routinely against many opponents. It enhances my image. I will be acting last through all futurebetting rounds. If I'm against an opponent who almost always raises the big blind given the opportunity, I willsometimes reraise in hold 'em with hands such as Q-7 offsuit or 7-6 suited. The sacrifice here is not what itappears to be. Against many opponents reraising is almost as good as just calling with these fairly-weak hands,and it some cases, reraising is much more profitable. - MC

16th Lecture - When To Stay And When To Quit

When To Stay And When To Quit The following lecture was the 16th in the series, held January 12, 1999, and later appeared in Card Player magazine

When to Keep Playing and When to Quit Playing

I can't stand it! I'm going on tilt! And it has nothing whatsoever to do with poker. Or does it?

Obviously, I'm talking about the Los Angeles Times. What else could possibly put the Mad Genius on tilt? Let meask you a question. What would you think if I taught you how to position your hold 'em hand so that winningenergy could rush up through the cards and invite a harmonious flop? What if I told you - quite seriously - that youshould sit in a chair facing southwest or that if someone had ever died who had previously played in your seat,that seat inherited bad luck.

If I told you any of that, would you think that I'm an expert? No? Well, then why the hell should anyone read theLos Angeles Times and think that it imparts any expertise whatsoever? It is soiled and sullied, and I'll tell youwhy. On the front page of the Sunday Real Estate section a feature has appeared about Feng Shui by Kirsten MLagatree. This is the newspaper many trust to give them accurate information about building trends, mortgagerates, housing prices, and more. But here comes this column that provides advice to a potential buyer of a homewhere a death had occurred, "This house, where so much tragedy has occurred, is permanently scarred. Even ifyou hired the most learned feng shui master on the globe to perform cleansing and purifying rituals, you'd still

have a house with a tremendous amount of negative energy." Do you see what I'm getting at? This is not a just-for-fun feature. It is dead serious, and if I used Card Player to promote anything similarly idiotic about poker,you'd rip the pages to pieces. And you should.

A logical person might say only that the house could have diminished value because other people might considerit to have negative energy. But, no. The Times is providing a service, informing us of negative energy. Not anopinion piece - a regular feature meant to inform. Lagatree then went on to devalue my home by advisingpotential buyers that "a sloped ceiling can be oppressive… and a source of negative (sha) chi." Don't know whatthat is. Don't wanna know. But she said it could result in marital or health problems. Ridiculous? So what? So,this is the Los Angeles Times, people. And you thought I was nuts when I warned you a couple years ago about"hippie remnants" taking over editorial positions in the American press. That column was called "Why SixtiesPeople Can't Win at Poker."

I read even more lunacy in the Times. Serious advice about placing a small mirror in front of a poorly positioned

house to deflect "noxious forces." A couple of my closest friends actually practice Feng Shui. Another friend hascome to my home and told me I was in serious trouble because the foot of our bed faces a doorway. I'm merelyamused by this, but I'm not amused by the Times efforts to promote this nonsense as if it were valid. All thisprovides me with two observations: (1) Superstition must be in vogue and that could be good for poker; and (2)aren't you glad you're reading a credible publication like Card Player?

Where was I? Ah, superstition. Did you know that's one of the main reasons players decide to change seats, playhands, and quit poker for the night? But it shouldn't have anything whatsoever to do with how you make thosedecisions. Today, we're going to examine rational reasons about…

"When to Stay and When to Quit"

1. Poker is business. Think of a poker game as your business. In order to succeed you need to do

business in the right location. In poker, you get to choose the location where you'll do business everytime you play. Choosing the right location - meaning the right game - is so important that it doesn't justdetermine how much you win. It often determines if you win. And once you're in a game, deciding



correctly whether to stay or quit is critical.2. The poker tide. Good games eventually get worse, and bad games eventually get better. In good

games, the weak players eventually leave or go broke. They are replaced by tough players trying tocapitalize on the game that was better earlier. Strong players eventually leave solid games out offrustration and go searching for easier opponents, and these games become easier. So, it's predictablelike the tide. Expect loose games to eventually get tighter; expect tight games to eventually get looser.

3. Where you stand. You should never stay in a game hoping to get even, because you already are even.

Your bankroll is always as large as it is when the cards are shuffled.

This attitude will save you the fate of many poker players who destroy their bankrolls chasing an elusiveand meaningless goal. You don't need to book a win tonight. You just need to make your best decisionstime after time. That's where the money is. Whether you win or lose for a particular session should notbe important to you. In the long run, you will earn or lose money in accordance with the quality of yourdecisions. Nothing more, nothing less. And you are always exactly even when then next hand begins.

4. It's OK to lose back what you won. There's no disgrace in turning a big win into a loss. It's no worsethan quitting now and then coming back tomorrow to meet bad luck. If you're in a good game where youbelieve you should earn money, then the main consequence of quitting is the same as it would be withany other job: You'll get less work done. And that means you'll make less money.

Poker's all-time stupidest question is, "Why didn't you quit when you were $600 ahead?" Does anyoneever ask that after you stay and win $3,000? Think about it. If you lose $300 for the night, your friendsare likely to say, "You should have quit when you were winning $600." Has any friend, in the entirehistory of the world, ever chided you after you won $3,000 with the words, "You should have quit whenyou were winning $600"? The fact is, you have no idea whether the next hour will bring you a win or aloss, so there's no way to know - based on dollars won alone - when to quit.

5. Manufactured streaks. Don't manufacture a win streak by quitting with small wins when the game isgood and staying to recover when the game is bad. Lots of players brag about their win streaks. They're just playing mental games that cause them to put in fewer hours and earn less money. It's easy to putyourself on a win streak. Just quit every time you're a little ahead. And when you're behind, keep playingas long as you can, because there's always a chance that you'll book a win. Yep. That works. You'llhave longer streaks and a better win-loss record than I will. But you'll have many small wins and notablebig losses. And you'll just cost yourself profit.

6. How to move up. When you're successful and ready to promote yourself to a bigger game, you don'tneed to play that game all the time. Stick with your previous limit and make occasional forays into thelarger limit. Always watch both games, and be ready to jump from one to the other. The larger limit mustbe much better than the regular limit to justify playing it. This advice is particularly valid if your bankroll islimited.

7. Staying.Reasons to stay in a game: (1) Game is good; (2) Your image is good; (3) Your spirits are good; (4)There is laughter; (5) You are alert.

That laughter part is important. I always tend to stay in a game where people are having a good time.This generally indicates that they are playing poker for fun and not for profit, and I encourage thisattitude in my opponents. Silence is a bad sign. It means your opponents may be serious about thegame and making carefully considered decisions. There's usually less profit in such games, and that'swhy "silence" makes the list below.

8. Quitting.Reasons to leave a game: (1) Game is bad; (2) Your image is bad; (3) You've been losing, inspiringopponents; (4) Silence; (5) Your foes play selectively, but aggressively; (6) Game is too loose for yourbankroll (loose games are generally more profitable, but require larger bankrolls, due to increasedfluctuations of outcomes); (7) You can't actually spot mistakes opponents are making; (8) You're worriedabout cheating (this will eat up mental energy, even if it's false); (9) You feel "glued to your seat."

Notice that I said you can quit because you're losing. This is not superstition. When opponents see youlose, they play better against you, believing that you're vulnerable. When you're winning and your imageis dominating, you're a force to be reckoned with and opponents are often intimidated, predictable, andeasy to beat. They'll call more with weak hands because they are numb, frustrated, or amazed. Andthey'll raise less when they have an advantage because they are less confident. So, you should be lesswilling to quit early when you're winning.

Also notice that I warned against foes who are selective about the hands they play, but aggressive when



they do enter a pot. These - as a group - are your least profitable foes.

You need to be able to identify mistakes opponents make. If you can't spot opponents making choicesthat you know are unprofitable and that you wouldn't make yourself, there is probably little profit to bemade in the game. So, consider quitting.

9. Caro's Threshold of Misery. The main rule of quitting: Never cross "Caro's Threshold of Misery." I havedefined a point that your losses are so large that your agony is already maximized. Beyond that,additional losses don't register, and they feel no worse. Then you will have a hard time makingmeaningful decisions. Quit before you get anywhere near this threshold. - MC

17th Lecture - Selected Poker Myths - Part 1

Selected Poker Myths - Part 1 The following lecture was the 17th Tuesday Session, held January 17, 1999, and later appeared in Card Player magazine

Some Favorite Poker Lies, Myths, and Misguided Advice

They are everywhere. They come from out of nowhere. They may astound you, humor you, even annoy you. Andthere is no place on earth to hide from them. They are opinions. Other people's opinions.

You've heard that everyone is entitled to an opinion, but that - in itself - is just someone else's opinion. And, infact, it isn't a very good one. If you ask me, not everyone is entitled to an opinion. Why should they be? Opinionsare things you are free to express in most advanced civilizations. So, nobody can stop anyone from speaking hismind. But, to me, being "entitled" to an opinion happens after someone has done some thinking or research - orhas stumbled upon some special knowledge - that makes that opinion worth learning. Otherwise, a person mayhave an opinion, but he isn't entitled to it.

Sometimes common poker advice that sounds like wisdom is not very good and not very profitable. It is simply

the fault of a society too permissive of opinions.

Today's Tuesday Session topic, from a lecture I gave earlier this year is…

Selected Poker Myths - Part 1

There might eventually be a follow-up lecture, analyzing more myths, but this is the only one so far. As always, Iam expanding the notes that were given on the one-page handout…

1. You can't overcome the rake. If you played poker at your kitchen table or in your basement, youprobably wouldn't take anything out of the pot to cover expenses. Every dollar lost by someone would bea dollar won by someone else. But casinos and cardrooms create an enhanced poker environment,complete with a selection of games, food and beverage service, advanced surveillance, professional

dealers, and more. Obviously, they need to recoup their costs and earn a profit. So, typically, eithermoney is taken from each pot or your poker seat is rented to you by the hour or half hour.

Overcoming a rake or a time charge takes skill. If all players are equal, only the house makes money. Itdoesn't matter if all the players were very poor or very excellent. When there is equality, nobody wins inthe long run. It is simply inequality of players that allows the best ones to win. If you have a significantadvantage over your opponents, you probably can overcome most house rakes. Usually, the larger thelimit, the less the house fees are when measured proportionally to the sizes of the wagers. This makesthe fees easier to overcome. For this reason, there are many more professional players at higher limits.

2. Jack-10 suited is a powerful hold 'em hand. At one time, many thought jack-10 suited is the mostprofitable hold 'em starting hand. It isn't. It usually should not even be played against a double raisebefore the flop. And you should often fold it in a full-handed game from early positions.

3. Play loose in tight games and tight in loose games. Anytime opponents stray from correct strategy,

you can take advantage by playing more hands for extra profit. If opponents are too tight, compensateby bluffing more often. You also can win more hands with moderate strength simply because they gounchallenged by tight players. If opponents are too loose, compensate by playing more semi-strong



hands that usually would not be profitable.

Because your opponents have relaxed their standards considerably, you can relax yours, too, and stillplay the better hands more often than they do. So, you don't need to be as selective. Although you won'tloose profit if you fail to adjust (and can expect to win even more money), you will maximize your profit ifyou do adjust. If the pot is raked, though, you shouldn't loosen up your standards as much to matchloose opponents. That's because, although more hands would be profitable without a rake, many of themarginally profitable hands become unprofitable with a rake. For reasons I've discussed in previouscolumns, this doesn't apply to seat-rental games or games where the button pays the fee no matter whowins. In those games, you should loosen up in response to loose opponents, just as if there were no feeat all.

4. World-class players can easily detect cheating. The most sophisticated forms of card marking, cardmanipulation, and poker partnerships are the least obvious. Surveillance at many major casinos is veryeffective, providing players with protection they don't have in home games. But players need to stayalert, because even world-class players can be and have been cheated. I personally feel much saferplaying poker in reputable casino environments than in home games. You should, too.

5. A "stop loss" is a good concept. The term stop loss simply means that once you have lost apredetermined amount of money, you will quit no matter what. Unless you're using it for purelypsychological reasons, or to keep you out of games where you may have miscalculated your edge, stoploss is not an effective means of money management. Since stop loss means to quit if you lose apredetermined amount, you are often merely stopping your opportunity for profit. Stop loss thenbecomes stop win. If you can emotionally handle the loss, the game is good, and you're playing well,you will eventually earn more money the more hours you play.

Despite this, there are some good reasons to quit when you're losing. For instance, the game may notbe as good as you think or opponents may not be intimidated by you and thus tend to play better. So,yes, tend to extend your sessions when you're winning and shorten them when you're losing. But -unless you've worked out a complex personal formula that dictates that you drop down to a lower limit ifyour bankroll shrinks to a given level - there is no fixed magic amount of maximum loss that you shoulduse to save money. Consider each situation separately.

6. Don't count your chips while you're sitting at the table. Counting chips is useful in measuring howwell you're doing. But, you shouldn't use this count for things like quitting when you're ahead to

manufacture a win streak. Still, you should know how you're doing in a game. So go ahead and count.Almost all professional poker players do.7. A player acting nervous is likely to be bluffing. Bluffers bolster themselves, are sometimes rigid,

sometimes don't breathe, and seldom look nervous or shake.8. Skillful players seldom check and call. Checking and calling is a natural tactic in poker. It often means

that your hand is not good enough to bet and not bad enough to fold. Against frequent bluffers andoveraggressive foes, checking and calling is very profitable.

9. Hold 'em requires more skill than seven-card stud. Nope. Stud is more complex, but there is moreluck involved, so your tough decisions aren't as consistently rewarded. But to figure out what the actualbest decisions are in stud requires a lot more analysis, largely due to the interaction of your cards versusyour opponents. In hold 'em, all face-up cards are communal, and the possible combinations of all theopposing hands are fewer and easier to consider. Additionally, it is helpful to remember folded face-upcards in stud, but this profit-making skill is not available in hold 'em, where no faceup cards are everthrown away.

Yes, there often are fewer skilled players in seven-card stud than in hold 'em. But this speaks to the typeof players the games attract, not to the theoretical levels of skill needed to play perfectly.

The cards will break about even in 100 hours. Cards may not break even in a year or in a lifetime when youconsider factors such as holding big winning hands in the right games against the right players. However, thebest players will almost always win for a year, but luck will determine how much. - MC

18th Lecture - Costly Mistakes Made By Experienced Players

Costly Mistakes Made By Experienced PlayersThe following lecture was the 18th Tuesday Session, held January 26, 1999, and later appeared in Card Player magazine



How Long-Time Poker Players Make Bad Decisions

In poker, experience isn't always the best teacher. Sometimes players begin their careers doing bad things out ofinexperience, and - just through plain luck - these bad things succeed at first. This reinforces that bad tactic orhabit. The players fail to reexamine their strategy as the years go by, believing that they are on a solid pokerfoundation, while - in reality - it is cracking and sinking slowly, unnoticeably.

This doesn't mean that these players all lose. Many win despite their mistakes. And that makes those mistakeseven harder to correct. That's because, when things are going well, you don't tend to seek corrective action. You just suffer the diminished profit. You take the hit.

Let's not do that anymore. Let's listen to a lecture I gave at Mike Caro University of Poker, Gaming, and LifeStrategy in January. The topic was…

Costly Mistakes Made by Experienced Players

1. Mistake: Not raising enough on early rounds in last position. If ever there was an opportunity toestablish your image at the same time that you gain a real tactical advantage, it's when one, two, andsometimes even three remaining opponents have checked to you on an early betting round.

The advantages of betting are that you're likely to make your opponents "behave" and check to you onthe next street (often when the limits double), and you can take control by (1) continuing to bet (forimage, for value, or because your hand improved) or (2) checking and taking a free card. The more timidyour opponents are, the more often you should bet. Simulations show that the times you knock potentialwinners out plus the times you win outright by betting is pure profit. The play is profitable even withoutthis, and it is image enhancing.

This doesn't mean you should always bet if everyone checks to you on the flop in hold 'em or checks toyou after the fourth card in seven-card stud. Sometimes you have a very weak hand and you shouldaccept the free opportunity to improve, knowing that you would have simply folded had anyone bet.Sometimes you will just check along with the crown for deceptive reasons. Sometimes you will checkbecause you've been betting too often and your strategy has become transparent. And sometimes youcheck because the opponents who have already acted are deceptive and tend to check-raise with great

frequency. Those are not the ones you should bet into.

Against them, usually take the free card graciously.

But, in general, try to maximize your positional advantage on early rounds quite often. The more you cando this without stepping over the line and becoming a victim of your own aggression, the more moneyyou'll make.

Mistake: Letting the weakest players feel left out.

2. When new recreational players come to your game, make them one of the group. From theirperspective, they feel uneasy - and are less likely to gamble - if you talk only to other regular players.

3. Mistake: Discussing strategy with opponents. This might make other opponents realize that there is

strategy. Nothing makes weak foes less willing to gamble poorly than making them think you might becritical of their decisions.

I never talk real strategy in a poker game. I babble, I mislead, I amuse, I laugh at jokes. I never, everwant opponents to think that they're being scrutinized. I want them to have my "permission" to playpoorly.

4. Mistake: Check-raising a timid player on your left. This is like crawling into a cave and waking up ahibernating bear. Why do it? The person on your left has a positional advantage, and as long as heremains timid, he isn't using that positional advantage to its full potential. Check-raising is often seen asan act of war. Why start it?

The truth about check-raising is that it is compensation for the disadvantage of having to act first. It

should be used, but it should be used sparingly.

5. Mistake: (Hold 'em) Just calling the blind in a late position when everyone before you has



passed.Despite what I've taught you about the pitfalls of playing very small pairs in hold 'em, this is the time youreally can play them profitably, and the most profitable way is to raise. Then players often will check toyou on the next round, and you can take control. The additional chance that you'll chase potentialwinners out, plus the chance that you might win right now, make raising the right play most of the time.

Additionally, you should know that a small pair is often significantly more profitable against one opponentthan against two opponents. If you flop three-of-a-kind, you probably want the extra opponent. But if youdon't, you can sometimes win heads-up with that unimproved pair, whereas you would have been muchmore likely to lose with that pair against two or more opponents.

If you play a small pair from early position (which, by the way, is not always a good idea), you should behoping either for a lot of callers or just one (or, of course, none at all). You should not be hoping for twocallers. That's why the correct play - if you do decide to play a small pair - is usually to just call from anearly position and invite players into your pot. But in a late position, you want to either win the blindmoney right now or end up against just one opponent, not two. So, a raise is often the better choice.

6. Mistake: Failing to bet medium-strong hands against non-threatening "calling stations." Playersare afraid of overusing this tactic. Don't be. Stop fretting and keep betting! Weak callers make your betswith medium-strong hands profitable, especially when you act last. Usually bet.

But make sure you understand that "non-threatening" was a key word in this mistake. If the playersyou're betting into are deceptive and apt to raise you back - thereby getting maximum value when theyhave you beat - you should not routinely bet medium-strong hands into them.

7. Mistake: Asking to raise the limits when opponents are losing. This gives them new hope, and theytend to "start over" and play better. Also, if the limits are bigger than is comfortable, your opponents willtighten up. Remember, most profit in poker comes from opponents who play too loosely.

8. Mistake:Splashing chips when bluffing. The more lively you bet, the more apt opponents are to call. In general,make you bluffs as unobtrusive as possible.

9. Mistake:Not bothering to change seats. A lot of poker profit comes from positioning yourself to the left of looseplayers and, also, to the left of knowledgeable-and-aggressive players. Sometimes you can become

glued to your seat and too lazy to make a change that would dramatically enhance your profit byallowing you to gain positional advantage against the correct players. Always be alert for a profitableseat change.

And, of course, this has nothing whatsoever to do with superstition. You should never change seats forsuperstitious reasons, because everything I teach about poker - and everything that really works inpoker - has nothing whatsoever to do with controlling luck or appeasing the poker gods. It has to do withpowerful, proven strategy, psychology, and statistics. And it's all you need to win. - MC

19th Lecture - Raising For The Right Reasons

Raising For The Right Reasons The following lecture was the 19th Tuesday Session, held February 9, 1999,and later appeared in Card Player magazine

Raising By Whim Can Be Costly - You Need a Reason to Raise.

I can tell you in one word the main motive for most raises. Whim. That's right, most of the raises you're ever go ingto encounter in your poker lifetime are made at whim. They're not carefully analyzed raises. They're not goal-oriented raises. They're just made at whim.

Of course, there are some hands so powerful that players raise on that basis alone - often correctly. But mostraise decisions aren't obvious. These borderline choices should be decided rationally. But they aren't. Repeating,they are decided by whim, and that's a very expensive method.

Of course, there are some hands so powerful that players raise on that basis alone - often correctly. But mostraise decisions aren't obvious. These borderline choices should be decided rationally. But they aren't. Repeating,



they are decided by whim, and that's a very expensive method.

You can add significantly to your profit if you consider key factors when deciding whether or not to raise. Todaywe'll look at some of them from a lecture delivered at Mike Caro University of Poker, Gaming, and Life Strategy inFebruary. It was the 19th in the series. I have taken the one-page handout that accompanied the lecture andexpanded the concepts exclusively for Card Player. The title of that Tuesday Session lecture was…

Raising for the Right Reasons

Don't raise to "get even" with an opponent. In poker, it doesn't matter whom you get even with, just so youget ahead. Taking bad beats personally is a common mental mistake. If Jerry beats you out of $100 and you beatNorman out of $500 ($400 total profit), that's better than if you beat Jerry out of $150 and Norman out of $150($300 total profit). It's the overall profit that you're after. So, there's no reason to get even with Jerry.

One of the instinctive ways people try to get even with opponents is to raise more liberally than usual as an act ofretaliation. You should never do this. I don't mean that you should never raise them. I mean that you should neverraise them for that reason.

It's OK to raise to send a message by raising, but you should do so against someone who will be influenced by

the message and might back down on future warfare, thus leaving you in control. Many opponents won't reactthat way. Players who have been beating you are motivated. They are not timid or predictable. But it is preciselyagainst timid and predictable players that borderline raises work best. If - instead - you choose borderline raisesagainst deceptive and aggressive foes, you will simply lose money in the long run. This is not just theory. I havesimulated these situations by computer. It turns out that borderline raises against volatile opponents simply don'twork. You need to win control over these opponents, and you can't do it by overbetting vulnerable hands.

Tend not to raise from early positions. Poker is largely a struggle for position, and when you don't have it,

you're often wise to just call (or fold). In general, you will lose money trying to assert dominance from an earlyposition. Save these early raises for your very best hands, and even then, you can often make more money justcalling. When you raise from an early seat, you are apt to chase away opponents you would profit from most ifthey stayed. You also might find yourself stranded against less profitable hands. That's why "thinning the field"from an early position is almost always a bad motive to raise. It thins the wrong people.

Tend to raise from late positions. Hands that would lose moderately from early positions win moderately orheavily from late positions. This means you can easily establish psychological dominance by raising when you actafter your opponents. Most serious players know this, but they fail to realize the extent to which this concept canbe profitably applied.

When it comes to raising, position shouldn't just be a concept that you intellectually acknowledge. It should be aprimary factor in deciding whether or not to raise. Think about your strategy. If you can't honestly tell me thatposition is a main consideration every time you think about raising, then I'm betting that you're making much lessmoney at poker than you should.

You should often raise when you will chase away players who would otherwise act after you on futurebetting rounds. This primal struggle for position can be the main factor in deciding whether to raise. It's often

worth taking slightly the worst of it by raising with a borderline hand now to gain position on later betting rounds.

You should raise less liberally when you're on the button (i.e., in the dealer position). You don't need togamble to get position, because you already have position. However, you should mix up your strategy andsometimes raise hoping to chase the blinds out and isolate (with better position) on the original bettor or raiser. AND…You should tend not to re-raise as the big blind against a late-position raiser, because it's unlikely that youcan ever get position. (Very rarely you might be able to isolate against the small blind, immediately or on futurebetting rounds, by choosing to reraise and act last throughout the hand, but this isn't usually worth the risk of areraise.)

Of course, if your big blind hand is exceptionally strong and there are lots of players already committed to the pot,you can raise to extend your profit. But with anything less than superior strength, I seldom raise in the big-blindposition other than against the small blind alone. I will often make an exception to this rule, though, if I can reraise

and force players who have so far only called a single bet out of the pot. This is where it's important to knowwhich opponents will usually fold if faced with a double raise. When I'm in doubt - usually because I haven'twatched opponents play long enough to form an opinion - I seldom reraise as the big blind. That's because the



assumption that typical opponents will call a double raise is usually right. And if they do, I'll have invested riskyextra money in a situation where I will have a positional disadvantage throughout the hand. So, I don't do it.

The governing rule of borderline raising decisions… Tend to make borderline raises only against timid

opponents. AND… Tend to raise deceptive opponents only when you have - or can get - position. These closehands only show profit by raising with a positional advantage or against timid foes. - MC

20th Lecture - Little-Known Poker Tips That Bring Big Profit

Little-Known Poker Tips That Bring Big ProfitThe following lecture was the 20th Tuesday Session, held February 16, 1999, and later appeared in Card Player magazine

Most people tend to feel smug about what they know. Poker players are no different.

"She didn't even have enough common sense not to raise with her three sixes! What did she think the guy had,aces up? Obviously he was going for a flush and he either made it or he missed it. So, why raise?" How manytimes have you heard comments like that?

Me too. We hear them all the time. This is just the way people who have gained knowledge and are proud of it tryto make their superiority known. They are seeking to elevate themselves above others. No big deal. Happens allthe time. But, what I teach is that you need to think back. Way back. I frequently ask students, "When did you firstrealize that?"

Maybe they gloat, "Oh, gosh, I realized that over 20 years ago!"

"OK," I say, "Then what were you thinking five minutes before you realized that?" And there's the point. Foreverything we know, there was a time five minutes earlier when we didn't know it. Some say I'm an egomaniac. Iguess they're right. Maybe I could sit at the final table in life's egomania word championship. But, you know what?I wouldn't win. And the reason I wouldn't win is simply because I realize that for every concept that I havemastered and swear by, there was a long period of ignorance that preceded it.

So, let's talk about today's column. We're going to discuss things that very few players know. But after I tell youabout them, they'll become part of your poker wisdom. And then you might feel smug because others don't knowthese things. If that happens, think back to the time, right now, when you had read to this point and no further.

This was the 20th in my serious of Tuesday Session classroom lectures at Mike Caro University of Poker,Gaming, and Life Strategy. It was delivered last February and is specially enhanced for Card Player…

Little-Known Poker Tips that Bring Big Profit

1. Pause two-and-a-hand seconds before you bluff. This is serious advice. If you bet instantly or waittoo long, you might make opponents suspicious. You are likely to trigger their calling reflexes.

You've heard me talk often about that "calling reflex." Most opponents want to call. They didn't come tothe cardroom to be bored and throw hands away. So, they have a bias toward calling, and anything youdo that seems even slightly suspicious can trigger their calling reflex.

I have carefully observed opponents in this regard for many years. While I have no conclusive scientificanswer, counting mentally, "One thousand one, one thousand two, one thousand -" seems to work bestbefore you bluff. Now, be aware that the length of time may be different for various situations and forspecific opponents. No two people react precisely the same way to stimulus, but two-and-a-half secondsseems like the perfect pause against most foes.

However, if you determine that an opponent already has mentally surrendered on his hand, bluffinginstantly may be better. Doing so doesn't give the opponent time to reevaluate. He is prepared to fold,and you take advantage of this with an instant wager. Usually, though, an instant bet just makesopponents suspicious. Also, if you pause too long before you bluff, opponents become suspicious andare likely to call.



Wait the two-and-a-half seconds. Try it. And remember, your bluff isn't likely to succeed most of the timewhether you pause appropriately or not. But in limit poker games, you only need to win once in a while to justify a bluff. That's because the pots are much bigger than the wagers, making the rewards muchbigger than the risks.

2. An opponent clearing his throat after betting has a medium-strong hand and almost neveranything else. Often you'll hear a player (always a male) clear his throat after making a bet. This is alittle-analyzed, unconscious male trait. It is a way of preparing psychologically for whatever may come.Players tend not to do this when they're bluffing. Then, they're typically quiet and unmoving, fearing thatany action may trigger a call. And, if they have especially strong hands, they don't have to preparethemselves for the possibility being beaten. Thus no throat clearing.

3. Two-handed bets are more likely to be called. Use this technique sometimes when you're sure you'rebetting the best hand. The two-handed action looks suspicious to most opponents and triggers theircalling reflex. I have been using this technique successfully for years, but I guess I'll have to stop afterblurting that out. Damn!

4. Opponents engaged in conversation who don't pause when they first look at their freshly dealthand are likely to fold. Observe and use this information to mentally move yourself to a "later" position(with reduced opening requirements). When you know opponents waiting to act behind you won't play,you can be much more aggressive in attacking. This wins extra profit and helps your image.

When players first look at their hands and see something they like and intend to play, it is natural forthem to pause and consider exactly how they will proceed. Raise? Just call? Lure players into the pot?All these questions and many more go through their minds. So, if they're carrying on a conversation,they will pause or stammer when they see a playable hand. In the absence of this pause, usually crossthem off the list of possible threats and pretend you're in a later position. You can then play slightlyweaker hands because not as many opponents have a chance of beating you.

5. One way to maximize your sandbagging profit is to threaten to call after checking. Players maybluff, thinking you're insincere about your verbal remark or gesture indicating a call. If they have mediumhands, they feel safer about betting them, not thinking they'll face an uncomfortable raise. But that'sexactly what they'll face.

By threatening to call, you've actually forced your opponents into what I call "either/or" evaluation. Eitheryou'll call or you won't. In addition to making it seem safe for your opponents to bet marginal hands,

often they may try to bluff, seeing their chances for success as a virtual coin-flip. The third possibility(and the truth), that you'll raise, seldom occurs to them.

6. Try to identify opponents who are playing at a limit above their norm. These players typically areuncomfortable. They are more likely to just call with borderline hands than to raise. They often can bebluffed. The unfamiliar, higher limit makes them among your easiest-to-beat, most predictable foes.

7. Even if you know you'll earn more (on average) if everyone passes, often you should still try toget called. How come? If you could get everyone to pass, you would. Unless you hold an unusuallystrong hand, there's usually more money in the pot right now - comprised of blinds, antes, and initial bets- than you can expect to earn on average (considering wins and losses) by playing to a showdown. Butusually, players will call, even if you don't want that to happen. So, your biggest profit, in those cases, isusually to encourage extra calls from weak hands.

8. Caro's Great Law of Betting: You should only bet if the value of betting is greater than the value ofchecking. Never forget that checking can have value as a poker weapon. It has the value of deception,

and more. Checking and then calling may earn more than betting and hoping to be called. There'sactually a lot more to this concept, and the reasoning gets fairly complex. But, today, just remember thebig premise.

Repeating: In order to justify a bet, the value of betting must be greater than the value of checking. If youbegin to thing about wagering that way, you'll earn a lot more money. - MC

21st Lecture - Treating Poker As A Business

Treating Poker As A Business The following lecture was the 21st Tuesday Session, held February 16, 1999,and later appeared in Card Player magazine.



The Business of Poker Can Be Very Profitable If You Know What to Dont.

It's OK to play poker frivolously. Have fun. Giggle. It's a great game. Not every golfer needs to break par. You canhave plenty of fun playing once a year and shooting 130. So, you don't need to be good at golf to enjoy it. Samegoes for poker.

But if you've reached the stage that you'd like to play poker seriously and you're ready to make some money, youprobably want to treat poker like a business. This was the 21st in my serious of Tuesday Session classroomlectures at Mike Caro University of Poker, Gaming, and Life Strategy. It was delivered earlier this year and isspecially enhanced for Card Player. The title was…

Treating Poker As a Business

1. It's OK if playing poker is fun - as long as you aren't playing for fun. Some people don't want to treatpoker as a business. For them, it's recreation. And that's just fine with me. There is no reason thatpeople can't enjoy poker casually without having to carefully crunch and critique it.

As pure recreation and entertainment, poker is one of the most fascinating games ever devised. Andperfectly reasonable people - many of them doctors, lawyers, and stock brokers - may be too busy

managing the success of their professions to invest the time needed to master poker. These people maywant to hear a few tips, but mostly they just want to play the game - not devote their lives to it. Poker isfun for these people; it is not a business.

If you're ready to take poker seriously and play full or part time with the intention of making money, thenyou need to think of it is terms of being a business. But it can still be fun.

2. What is "enough" when you treat poker as a business? o Just knowing poker isn't enough;

you need to play seriously.o And playing poker seriously isn't enough;

you need to play poker ample hours to earn a living.o And playing poker seriously ample hours to earn a living isn't enough;

you need to play in the right places.6. And playing poker seriously ample hours to earn a living

in the right places isn't enough; you need to play at the right times.o And playing poker seriously ample hours to earn a living in the right places at the right times

isn't enough.;you need to play against the right people.

o And playing poker seriously ample hours to earn a living in the right places at the right timesagainst the right people isn't enough;you need to play your best game all the time.

o Playing poker seriously ample hours to earn a living in the right places at the right times againstthe right people and playing your best game all the time is enough- IF you keep records!

3. Why keep records? Records aren't just for your accountant or for your taxes. Keep them to analyzewhat works. Which games are better for you? Which limits? Which opponents? Which casinos? Whichhours? Use these statistics just as a good baseball manager would to make strategic decisions likewhen to bunt, when to steal bases, when to use a left-handed pitcher.

Additionally, when you have records, you can't con yourself about how well you're doing. You must facereality, and that can motivate you to improve and stay focused.

And never destroy your records. It's OK to declare a new "campaign" and start fresh, but keep those oldrecords for reference. In fact, starting over with a new campaign isn't a bad idea. The past is the past,and presumably you've learned new things, decided on better strategies, and maybe determined toapply new discipline from this point onward. Fine. Then there's no reason you can't declare that brandnew campaign, just like a baseball team begins a new season. And you don't even need to wait for thelast season to end, if it will please you psychologically to begin anew right now. You can even give anew campaign a name. Call it "Campaign Stud Storm" or whatever makes you happy. But wait!

I said, wait! Before you begin that new campaign, make sure you do not destroy your old records. I'vemade this mistake when I first started out, and I wish I had all my early records now to contrast them to

my current experiences. And, to be truthful, I don't always keep game-by-game breakdowns by categoryanymore, because I only play poker five or so times a month (sometimes more, sometimes less) and I



don't have the same passion for percentages that I did years ago when poker was my only profession.But this is my failing, and it shouldn't be yours. Keep very detailed records. They will help you.

4. Location.Suppose you want to open a restaurant. You've heard the old adage, "The three keys to retail businesssuccess are location, location, and location." Perhaps that's a little overstated, because there are manyother factors to consider and things to do when setting up a successful retail store. But, location is oftenthe most important, because if customers can't find you and visit you easily, they will usually shopelsewhere. The point is, you want to do business where you have access to the best customers, so youcan make the most money.

Poker is the same way. And, in poker, your weakest opponents are your best customers. If you're aserious player or a professional, when you take a seat in a poker game, you're setting up shop. You'veopened for business. Suppose you had to buy a license to sit in that one seat at that one table for yearsto come. Then you'd have to hope you'd chosen a good casino and that the players who challenged youday after day would be easy to beat (good customers) and that the game would be the limits you wantand the form of poker from which you are most able to profit.

Fortunately, it doesn't work like that. There's no license required, and you don't need to build or lease abuilding freezing you to a single location. One of the great things about poker as a business is that you

get to choose your best location every time you play! It's like opening your restaurant in what youperceive to be the best location, but three other restaurants suddenly open around you, under pricingyour meals and taking your business. Wouldn't you like to just plop down your restaurant somewhereelse tomorrow, and keep the profits keep flowing?

Well, that's almost exactly how it works with poker. If there are better games elsewhere, you move. Youdo business at a new location. Sometimes changing seats to get a positional advantage on an opponentis valuable by itself. In other words, you might not need to move your poker business clear across town.You might simply decide to use the storefront next door (an adjoining seat at the poker table).

And since location is the key to your poker profit, you better take advantage of this amazing opportunity.You'd be surprised how many knowledgeable players fail to use the concept of location to theiradvantage.

5. What matters most? Here's one of the most important concepts about the business of poker. In poker,it isn't money you should be thinking about. Money takes care of itself if you play correctly. What mattersmost is time.

If you're a fairly good player making two minimum bets per hour, whenever you make a mistake costingyou two bets, that's a whole hour you need to make up. Each time you play poorly for a session, youmight need to invest days undoing the damage. Think of poker as an exercise in accumulating the most"good" hours possible. Each time you stray from your best game or spend time in the wrong game,those are hours wasted.

6. Treat your regular opponents like business clients. Treat them nice. They are your customers; theysupply your profit. Learn their habits. Also, keep track of their results, just as many successfulbusinesses keep track of their customers purchases on a database. They want to know who bought how

much, just as you should want to know who supplied you the most profit.

And who are they - the profit suppliers in poker? They're simply the biggest losers. Maybe - rarely -there's a particular opponent who is not a big loser that is especially profitable for you. That's because,maybe you can bluff him or he's intimidated by you or he furnishes you profit some other way. Butusually the biggest losers overall are also you're best customers, so you should try to identify who theyare and play against them whenever possible.

7. If you keep a constant, but inadequate, bankroll, you will eventually go broke. This is an absolutemathematical certainty. And it is the main reason why most skilled, emotionally stable players fail at their"poker business." Spending pieces of your accumulating bankroll because a long losing streak seemsunlikely is a diagram for doom.

Most winning players go broke. Wait! Did you hear what I said? I said, most winning players go broke.Even medium- and big-limit world-class players. The reason is that they may start with $5,000, win$100,000 in four months, spend $80,000, and lose back $25,000. Then what? Then they're broke



despite having won $80,000. These are big winners with big problems. Keep an adequate bankroll. - MC

22nd Lecture - Maximizing Profit Against Weak Opponents

Maximizing Profit Against Weak Opponents The following lecture was the 22nd Tuesday Session, held February 16, 1999, and appeared in Card Player magazine

The Business of Poker Can Be Very Profitable If You Know What to Dont.

Maximizing Profit Against Weak Opponents

When I was much younger, I'd drive miles to play against the toughest players in the world. I'd leave easy gamesto seek challenging ones. I enjoyed the combat, and I told myself that I was improving my skills by challenging thebest opponents.

Yes, I survived this long erratic period in my career. In fact, before I began to write, lecture, and research aboutpoker, I had no other job. Poker was all there was for 14 years. And during those years, I spent a great deal of

time bumping heads with some of the most skillful players the world has ever know.

I teased my mind into thinking I was honing my skills by making it hard on myself. But, in reality, I was doing toomuch honing and too little capitalizing on the skills I had mastered already. Well, I'm proud to report, I was able tosurvive these world-class tough opponents and make money. Make that: sort of make money. I say, "sort of makemoney," because you need to compare the money you actually won with the money you should have won. If it'sless, then the difference is a loss in my mind.

And, clearly, I would have won even more money if I'd spent a greater share of my time facing weaker foes. So,lesson learned. We move on. Life gets better. This was the 22nd in my serious of Tuesday Session classroomlectures at Mike Caro University of Poker, Gaming, and Life Strategy. It was delivered earlier this year and isspecially enhanced for Card Player. The title was…

Maximizing Profit Against Weak Opponents

1. Weak opponents supply all of your profit. Just keeping this concept in your mind at all times will dowonders toward putting you on the path to poker profit. It's easy to forget this, because so much of yourpoker activity consists of making tough decisions against tough opponents. But that's not where theprofit is. In the long run, the profit always comes from players who are weaker than you. Nothing else ispossible. And the weaker your opponents are, the more money you can expect to earn.

Please don't confuse this concept with the reality that you also earn profit by making quality decisionsagainst your strongest foes. This is irrefutable. Also, you may be able to outplay a few opponents whoare winners overall. When this happens, these players are weak from your personal perspective, thoughnot in general. For purposes of your personal profit, you should seek them out. Their special weaknessrelative to you supplies money.

To make the most money, you need to play as correctly as possible against both weak and strongopponents. But, overall, weak opponents are the ones who bring the profit to the poker table. If you'renot playing against foes weaker than you are, you cannot expect to win money. Period.

2. What's so great about beating strong opponents? Beating strong foes wins a lot of respect and alittle money. Beating weak foes wins a little respect and a lot of money.

So, unless you're honing your skills on select occasions, you should seek out the weakest possibleopponents. There is no excuse to do otherwise. The most successful poker players in the world are notthe ones who show a profit against the strongest opponents.

The most successful players are those capable of extracting the most money from their weakestopponents. These most-successful players tend to play fewer hours against strong opposition than they

do against weak opposition. Conversely, the strongest opponents often don't know how to extractmaximum profit from weak foes. They are doomed to live pitiful lives of poker mediocrity simply becausethey know how to play well against rational opponents, but they never learned how to extract the most



money from the providers of profit.

3. Never compliment weak opponents on good plays or discuss serious strategy with them. Whenyou compliment weak opponents on correct play, you make them proud. Thereafter, they may struggleto play better in an effort to please you.

Also, it's a very bad idea to discuss serious strategy with weak opponents - at the table or away from it.Doing so makes them self-conscious, and they recognize that there are levels of poker they don'tunderstand. They are apt to play more cautiously - and, worse, they may even learn to play well!

4. Make weak opponents into "legends." When you boast about the pots won by weak players withhorrible hands, you feed their ego. They may try to live up to their legends - especially since you havepraised them, rather than criticized them, for their weak play.

Learn to say, in Harvey's presence, "I wish I could play like Harvey! That guy can take 10-9 and win thebiggest pots! He knows exactly when to do it. It's not what you play, it's how you play." Then look Harveydirectly in the eyes, and say sincerely, "I really mean it. I've seen you do it so many times. It's a joy towatch." Say stuff like that and learn to mean it and your rewards will be much greater than if you makeHarvey feel uncomfortable about occasionally winning with weak hands. You want to encourage his poorplay, not discourage it

5. Say and do things to make opponents feel comfortable playing poorly. Tell them you sometimesget lucky with those same hands. Show them an occasional played hand that is as weak as, or weakerthan, those they play.

6. Weak opponents don't play equally weak against everyone. Try to get more "gifts" than youropponents. You will if (1) weak players like you, (2) you're fun to play with, and (3) you don't seem to"hustle" opponents.

It's important to be liked. If you seem to be cheering for your weak opponents more than for yourself,you will be liked by them. You need to make your weakest opponents enjoy having you at the table, andyou must never say anything that makes opponents think they're either being taken advantage of orscrutinized.

Some players think their weakest opponents give money away equally to everyone. That's incorrect.Everyone has borderline decisions to make, even weak poker players. Each player, no matter how looseor unskilled, must make decisions to play or not play, to call or not call, with hands that are right on theborderline from his perspective. These will be decided almost at whim. You will profit from more thanyour fair share of these weak hands and bad calls if your opponent enjoys playing against you anddoesn't fear being criticized for poor choices.

Those who believe that encouraging these extra calls ruins your chances of being able to bluff miss thepoint. You aren't going to be able to bluff these weak players very often anyway. They call too much, sobluffing is almost always a poor choice against them. It's calling too often that is their greatest mistake,and that's what you should encourage.

7. Don't try to trap weak opponents. Check-raising and tricky plays make them feel targeted and lesswilling to give you their chips later. Usually just play your best hands aggressively and use a

straightforward strategy. You can be playful without seeming mean.

When you make a sophisticated trapping maneuver, you may very well make more money on thatspecific hand, but you've make your weak opponent uncomfortable and less likely to bestow "gifts" onyou in the future.

8. Use diplomacy to stop others from belittling weak opponents. You should do this away from thetable. Take the offenders aside. Unfortunately, this belittling behavior is standard for even some pros. Itmakes the weak players reluctant to continue their extra-bad play for fear of criticism. And that costs youmoney. – MC

23rd Lecture - Folding Your Poker Hands For Extra Profit



Folding Your Poker Hands For Extra ProfitThe following lecture was the 23rd Tuesday Session, held March 2,1999, and later appeared in Card Player magazine.

Folding for Profit - You Don't Need to Win a Pot to Make Money!

If you walked up to almost any average poker player involved in a hand and asked what the goal is, the mostlikely answer you'd get is, "To win the pot." But among my favorite poker lessons is: The object of poker isn't towin pots.

I keep saying it and saying it and some people keep not getting it and not getting it. But it's really very simple. Ifyou wanted to win as many pots as possible, all you'd have to do is bet and raise at each opportunity. Then you'deither win the pot because everyone passed or you'd win in the showdown if you had the best hand. Every handthat could possible win would win.

While your money lasted, you'd be the world champion of winning pots, but how long would your money last?Probably not very long, because calling and raising all the time is a sure way to lose. Trying to win every pot isnot profitable. In poker, you need to be selective about the hands you play and how you play them. The profitcomes from making the right decisions. Each time you make the right decision, you earn money. Folding is oftenthe right decision. So, when you fold correctly you earn money.

That doesn't make sense to some people, because they figure, "How can I earn money if I throw my hand away?Doesn't that mean I lost money?" No, not if you folded correctly. The profit is always the difference between themoney you have now by making the right decisions and the money you would have had overall if you'd made thewrong decisions. That difference is real, and you can spend it. Folding is, therefore, potentially profitable.

And that's what we're going to think about today. This was the 23rd in my serious of Tuesday Session classroomlectures at Mike Caro University of Poker, Gaming, and Life Strategy. It was delivered earlier this year and isspecially enhanced for Card Player. The title was…

Folding Your Poker Hands for Extra Profit

1. It's not the absolute size of your hand that matters; it's the relative size. Three of a kind is always abig hand in seven-card stud. Top two pair is always a big hand in hold 'em. Big hands are big hands,unless you know something about the opposing hands.

And that's where even experienced players make beginners' mistakes. If the pot is $120 and it coststhem $20 to call, they are very likely to make a poor call with a straight that only has one chance in 10 ofwinning (instead of the mathematically required one chance in seven - or anything fractionally more thanone in six). However, they are very unlikely to call with an ace-high garbage hand that has one chance in10 of winning. So, they play correctly with the garbage hand, but feel obligated to call with the "big"hand.

They are making the common mistake of thinking in absolute values, rather than relative values. Theonly reason to call with a big hand in an unprofitable situation is if its strength is obvious to youropponent. Then folding might inspire the opponent to bluff more often than you expect in the future and

cost you money overall. Often your biggest hands are the easiest and most profitable to fold, especiallyif they don't look big and you're sure an opponent can only bet a strong hand. It's not the size of yourhands that matters; it's the size of the pot and the likelihood that you'll win.

2. Against a bet, whenever calling is unprofitable and raising is unprofitable, folding is profitable.What else would be possible? In other words, there is profit in losing a pot if it costs you money topursue it. The profit is the difference between the amount you'd lose in the long run by continuing to playin thousands of similar situations and zero. You win the difference between nothing (which is what itcosts you to fold) and what you would have lost.

And please don't think of that fold as costing you whatever you had already "invested" in the pot. What'sout there is out there. It belongs to nobody until the pot is awarded. Once you put money into the pot, itisn't yours anymore and you have no investment to defend. Decisions must be made in conjunction withthe size of the pot (independent of where that money came from) and the amount it will cost you to play.

3. When folding a strong hand that looks weak, make your opponent think that you're going to raise



(or at least call) if you make something. This ploy always works. Squeeze out a card and passunhappily and suddenly. The fact that you had two pair, rather than a missed flush, will not occur to youropponent. So, he won't think you made a big laydown.

Making it obvious that you are willing to laydown big hands is a sure way to encourage opponents totake shots at you at unexpected times. While you can adjust your strategy accordingly, it's much easierto win if your opponents stay uninspired and predictable.

4. Overcalling advice: (1) Never overcall on the river unless your hand is much stronger than what youwould need to make the first call, and (2) Never make the second overcall on the river unless you havemajor strength.

This is really a mathematical issue. Let's say there's a final-round bet and you have the same chance ofwinning as the first caller. Fine. In a $50/$100 limit game, if you're last to act and the pot is $900 and itcosts $100, you only need one chance in 10 of winning to make this a break-even call. (In a muchsmaller 50 cent/$1 game with a $10 pot and a $1 call, the reasoning is exactly the same.) Anything moreand you're expecting a profit if you could play this situation out thousands of times. Anything less, andyou're not.

The math is easy: At one win in 10, you snag the $900 already in the pot once and lose $100 nine times.

It comes to nothing. So, if you're last to act, you could call if you have one chance in nine of winning,without losing money.

But what if someone else beats you to the call? The pot now grows $100 to $1,000. Now your pot odds(the amount the pot offers versus the cost of your call) are even more attractive. Now, though, it's time tofold. But wait! We said that your chance of winning is just as good as the first caller's. So, why wouldn'tyou call?

You wouldn't call because you earn money by folding. If you would have beat the original bettor once in10 times, then you still will. Nothing changes. But you will only beat the first caller once in two times. Thismeans that you will only win this pot by making that final call once in 20 times (half of the time for eachof the one in 10 times you beat the original bettor). And, although your chances of winning fell to half,after that first call, the pot only grew from $900 to $1,000 - making your pot odds grow only from 9-to-1to 10-to-1. That isn't nearly enough to make the call. In fact a call now would cost you $45 on average.So, by folding, you earn $45!

5. When to fold in hold 'em. You need to fold most hold 'em hands before the flop or on the flop. Seldomcommit yourself further with defensive hands.

6. The art of folding. The great art of folding profitably is to never let aggressive opponents know youfolded a significant hand - something I mentioned earlier. If knowledgeable opponents know you have astrong hand, it's often better to call, even if calling is slightly unprofitable right now. Experiencedopponents can take advantage of you if they think you lay down big hands. And, finally…

7. Try not to fold if folding will turn an opponent who never bluffs into an opponent who seldombluffs.This will mean the opponent will steal a pot from you once in a while, but not often enough that youshould call. A conspicuous fold can cost you whole pots later. - MC

24th Lecture - The Bad Rule

The Bad Rule The following lecture was the 24th Tuesday Session, held March 9, 1999, and later appeared in Card Player magazine.

An Annoying Rule - Plus the Great Secrets to Playing Short-Handed

Before we get started on today's lesson, there's a new tournament poker rule I'd like to discuss with you. On onehand, this rule ranks among of the most obnoxious, illogical, pointless, and aggravating innovations ever to hitpoker. The rule suddenly has taken us from a perfectly fair system to an inequitable one. It makes you want to

take the paper it's written on, wad it into a tight little worthless ball and smash it against the nearest wall. Thensmash it again. Over and over. It makes you want to tear the rule to tiny shreds and flush it down a toilet. It makesyou want to lash out against those responsible for its introduction and to scream heartfelt obscenities so loudly



that the harshness of your rage lasts long and lingers in the lives of the perpetrators until the day they finally die.

On the other hand, it's really no big deal, and it doesn't bother me.

In fact, not getting bothered by small injustices is one of the main things I teach. Among life's little secrets is:Don't let things that annoy you annoy you. The way I figure it, you are going to run into, say, 429 things that could

really put you on tilt next year. People won't act appropriately. You won't get refunds you deserve. You'll crashhead first into rudeness, carelessness, incompetence, and indifference. Expect that. If only 389 such thingshappen to you, you're having a good year! And if you're having a good year, wouldn't it be a waste of energy totry to fight each one of these little injustices that you know is going to happen? You choose your spots in poker;you choose your spots in life, too.

The bad rule

Despite this, I thought I should say something about a bad rule that's coursing about the country. It recentlyshowed up in a tournament at Hollywood Park Casino. It's the new "race off" rule. If you don't know what I'mtalking about, let me explain. In tournaments, limits are pushed up every half hour or so, otherwise we'd neverreduce the field to a single winner and the event might go on forever. But, when you raise the stakes, the smallerdenomination chips become devalued and often they have no further use. So, tournament directors have decidedthat the best method is to buy up all the small chips and hand out larger denominations.

For instance, early in a small buy-in tournament, all the $1 chips may be exchanged for $5 chips. Fine. But whathappens to someone with $2 in chips? What about $1, $3, or $4? Different systems have been tried. Sometournaments give you a $5 chip if you have $3 or $4 in chips, and nothing if you have $2 or $1. While that wasfair, the fear of eliminating a player with just $2 left - taking his chips away and telling him to go home - wassomewhat unsettling to tournament directors. So, the race was invented. Under this system, all the odd chipswere put on the table and the dealer dealt one card to each chip. The player whose chip commanded the highestcard won all those extra chips in the race. Then those stray, unwanted chips were exchanged for largerdenominations.

Then people began to complain that this brought too much luck into the tournament. Then someone decided thatall those extra chips shouldn't go to just one player. If there were four chips, why not have a different high cardwin each of them? So far, so good. But here's where the new system got messed up.

Not a good idea

They decided that the same player could not win more than one chip! This mini-dose of poker socialism bothersme. I don't mind trying to keep all the odd chips from benefiting one player, but let's be fair about it. If I have fourchips and you have one, then I should get four cards and you should get one. And that's what correct happens.And here's what doesn't.

Let's say there are three $5 chips to be awarded. I have $1, Janet has $3, you have $4, and five other playershave $1 each - $13 total, which rounds off to a third chip. Remember, we get one card for each $1 chip. Here'show the race ends up: Me - 9; Janet 10, Q, J; You A, K, 4; and the others sadly receive either a three or a deuce.Under the old system (which was perfectly fair, by the way), you win the race and get all three chips. Under thenew system, you get one chip for your ace, and then you're ineligible to win more. Mathematically, this meansthat your other two cards had no value, even though they were chips you controlled during the tournament and

were entitled to redeem. Janet, having the highest card among those still eligible gets a chip. And I - with thesixth-highest card (a nine) also get a chip. To do this fairly, you should have gotten two chips and Janet one.

Well, this may be a picky point, but this new system is grossly unfair to the players with the most odd chips. Infact, if you had a totally break-even decision that would allow you to get rid of three of your four extra chips, therewould be a slight mathematical advantage in doing so. The injustice of the system isn't great, but the logic behindthe system is greatly flawed. Quite simply, from the point of view of those holding the most odd chips, the "raceoff" has changed from fair to unfair. And all we really need to do to correct this - assuming we need a new systembecause we actually care about someone getting too many odd chips on a race off in the first place - is to awardone next-level chip to each of the highest corresponding cards, no matter who wins them. One player still mayend up with all the chips, but it's very unlikely - and the procedure is fair.

W



Meaningless? Maybe. But it's my column and my point - and I get to make it. OK, I'm done now. Let's go to class.

hree's a crowd

T

Heads-up is my favorite kind of poker. When a third player sits down, I begin to feel crowded, and by the time weget to be five-handed, I'm really claustrophobic. This doesn't mean I don't play in full-handed games sometimes. Ido. But short-handed poker has so much going for an experienced player that I've never understood why somany professionals won't play.

Let's examine that today. This was the 24th in my serious of Tuesday Session classroom lectures at Mike CaroUniversity of Poker, Gaming, and Life Strategy. It was delivered March 9, 1999 and has been specially enhancedfor Card Player. The title of my talk was…

Making Money From Short-Handed Poker

There is usually more profit in short-handed poker games than in full-handed poker games.The three main reasons for this are:

Your opponents are likely to have had less experience playing short-handed;

You can capitalize fully on your psychological skills and tell reading by focusing on just one or twoopponents; and

You are involved in many more profitable decisions per hour.

There are four basic types of short-handed games. They are:

Short by design;

Short by attrition;

Temporarily short for a few hands; and2"> Temporarily short when the game first starts.

Of these, the most profitable are categories (1) and (2). These games are likely to remain longer in a short-handed state. But keep this in mind: Games that began full and are suddenly short-handed are in jeopardy ofcollapsing at any moment. These games can be extra profitable, and it sometimes takes a lot of fast talking tokeep players seated. Games that begin short-handed are very likely to survive, because the players who start thegame generally like to play against few opponents. When a game is short by design, you need to be carefulwhom you're against, though, because those players have chosen to play short handed. Games short by attritionleave you with players who did not intend to play short handed, but may now be losing late in the night and maybe on tilt.

Seating matters three or more handed. But not heads-up. In a three- to five-way game, be especially sure toput loose players or knowledgeable and aggressive players to your right, so they act first. (I've often explainedthis important concept.) This strategy matters more than it does in a full-handed game, because of the increased

number of confrontations you will have against those players to your right.In heads-up, there is no such thing as positional advantage. You are equally to the right of each other.

Checking and calling is routine and necessary in short-handed poker games. Don't think that it's weak orunprofessional to check and then often call.

Short handed is a war over pace. Often you'll be against an opponent who is uncomfortable, but temporarily

forcing his lead with aggressive bets. You'll usually regain control against this type of player by simply raising andre-raising until he backs off. Then you again control the pace. Conversely, if an opponent folds too often, that's just about the costliest mistake possible short-handed. Encourage this by showing medium-big laydowns of yourown. I like to show Q-8 in the big blind and throw it away. This makes the opponent think he is doing right byfolding. If you raise or call every time, the opponent may adjust and mimic you.

About heads-up hands. If a hand starts heads up, you can never get more than 100 percent return on your

investment. But in multi-handed pots, you can. Also, if you're playing heads-up hold 'em (with a few insignificantexceptions), the highest single card is always the favorite if played to the showdown. Yes, 10§ 2¨ is a favorite

against 8ª 7ª!

Short handed, it's often the quantity of winning hands, not the quality that counts. You will not gain



much more winning with a big hand than winning with a medium hand. Short-handed poker is a game ofaccumulating profit from small edges, whereas full-handed poker is a game of capitalizing on big advantages - inaddition to small edges.

The hands you're dealt are not as strong in short-handed games as they are in a full-handed gamesafter many opponents fold. When players fold, it indicates an absence of quality cards, and these may bebunched in the remaining hands. This factor doesn't come into play short handed.

One of the big secrets short handed is to usually just bet, raise, and re-raise with big hands.There is little reason to be deceptive, because these bets and raises are common plays with any hands. Whileyou will sometimes slow play big hands, you should mostly use your medium-strong hands to change pace andbe creative. – MC

25th Lecture - Maximizing Profit By Playing Your Position

Maximizing Profit By Playing Your Position \ The following lecture was the 25th Tuesday Session, held March 16, 1999, and later appeared in Card Player magazine.

If You Don't Know Anything About Playing Position, You Probably Are Costing Yourself a Lot of Money!

Position is one of the most important concepts in poker. We'll deal with it today. If I'm in a game with a world-classplayer - such as a Doyle Brunson, a Roy Cooke, or a Linda Johnson - I want to act after they do. Most days,there's just no way I'm going to give this type of player a positional advantage by letting them sit to my left andbeat up on me.

I just mentioned Linda Johnson for a reason. Yesterday I was talking with several people while waiting for a gameto start. The tired old question arose about who is the best woman poker player. I said that I was astonished bythe skills, insights, and decorum of at least a dozen women players. But, in my mind, there should be noargument. My choice is Linda Johnson, because I believe she has the strongest analytical skills of all the femalesuperstars usually cited.

Of course, Linda hates to be called a "women player." She considers herself simply a player. That's fine with me,because in my book she ranks near the top of my list of most-respected opponents - male or female. Linda issometimes too busy quarreling with me about rules and such to have time to set the record straight about herprowess as a player. So, I thought I'd do it for her. And now…

Position is what we're about to discuss. This was the 25th in my serious of Tuesday Session classroom lecturesat Mike Caro University of Poker, Gaming, and Life Strategy. It was delivered March 16, 1999 and has beenspecially enhanced for Card Player. The title of my ta lk was…

Maximizing Profit by Playing Your Position

1. If a good player has position against a great player, the good player will win! Players tend toundervalue the incredible advantage of having the best position. When you act first, you usually need tobe vastly superior to your opponent just to break-even.

I'm not talking about a single hand. Anyone can win any hand at any time. On a single hand, positioncan even work against you. I'm talking about the long run. Superior seating position is very powerfulwhen measured over hundreds of hands. Among equally skilled opponents in three-or-more-handedgames, the player to the left eventually stomps on the player to the right. You can try to sandbag (checkand raise) to compensate for poor position, but that tactic can only partially offset the disadvantage ofacting first. When your opponent gets to see what you do before acting, he will eventually take yourmoney unless you are a greatly more accomplished poker player.

Here's something I've said so many times I've lost count, but it needs to be said again now: You wantloose players to your right so that you can act after they do. They supply the most money, and you wantto be in a position to take advantage of them. Players who are aggressive and deceptive also belong onyour right, because if, instead, you let them act immediately after you, they can interfere with yourstrategy and hamper your ability to control the game. Often you must choose between having a looseplayer and a dangerous player to your right. If you have a chance to change seats, make the decision bygauging how loose or how dangerous these players are. Also consider other opponents who may be



near to your right or left, though not immediately adjacent.

2. Be careful about reraising from the small blind position. You'll diminish your pot odds and you'llhave the worst position throughout all future betting rounds. Your first inclination should be - if your handis at all playable - to take advantage of pot odds by just calling in the small blind position.

3. The best visible seven-card stud hand always has the worst position. Obviously, that hand mustact first. But you should consider how likely it is that the same hand will continue to act first in decidingyour next strategy. It is correct to raise frequently in a three-way (or sometimes more-way) pot when thehigh hand bets in seven-card stud and opponents remain behind you. This is a time when limiting thefield with medium-strong and vulnerable hands can be quite profitable. Remember, when opposinghands seem about equal to yours, your primary quest often is to gain position. I'm not a big advocate of"limit-the-field" theory. There are clearly times for it, but the tactic is generally overused andmisunderstood. When you can thin the field and improve your position with a vulnerable hand, that'soften a time you should raise with the hope of driving opponents out of the pot. In fact, though nobodyseems to say much about it, improving your position relative to your opponents is often the main benefitof thinning the field. Also see point 6.

4. Don't forget to raise on 4th Street in seven-card stud. This occasional standard maneuver, firstpopularized by Chip Reese, will save you money by making an opponent check into you when thestakes double on 5th Street. Don't overuse this, though. And the more likely your opponent is to remainthe high hand, the more effective this strategy is.

5. In hold 'em, it's usually more profitable to make an aggressive raise just before the button than

on the button. When you're on the button, you are already guaranteed best (last) position on futurebetting rounds. When you're one or two seats before the button, it's often worth a daring raise to attemptto gain that position.

6. While limiting the field often makes no sense, limiting the field by chasing away players behindyou usually makes a lot of sense! The point is, you shouldn't care so much about being drawn out onwhen you have the best hands. Sometimes you want opponents out, sometimes in. Usually, a raise withthe pure intention of saving yourself from being drawn out on is ill advised (though sometimes it'scorrect). However, the intention of chasing away competition behind you when you have a medium tomedium-strong hand is sensible - and profitable if it works.

7. Short-handed or late-handed means a constant quest for position. Three of the key tactics are: (1)Raise before the button to gain position; (2) raise on the button to maximize position; (3) reraise liberallyfrom the big blind when heads-up against the small blind.

8. You can gain position by using tells to mentally "eliminate" players who will act after you. Whenyou do this, you effectively move up to the next more-profitable position for each opponent you can

identify as a folder. (The effect isn't quite like moving up a whole position, even if your tell is 100 percentaccurate. Why? The "bunching factor" of quality cards remaining is slightly different when a late player is"eliminated" than when an early player folds.)

9. Playing your position heads-up. There's no such thing as seating position heads-up, because you andyour opponent will take turns acting last. But, on several occasions I've been astonished by a heads-upplayer changing seats in an apparent attempt to get position on me! - MC

26th Lecture - Profitable Things To Watch In A Poker Game

Profitable Things To Watch In A Poker Game The following lecture was the 26th Tuesday Session, held March 23, 1999, and later appeared in Card Player magazine.

Some of Poker's Most Profitable Things to Observe

I believe that many potential winners are inattentive at poker games simply because they don't know what'simportant. They want to win. But they try to do too much at once. They try to look at everything. They becomefrustrated. They fail. They look at nothing.

That's what we're going to talk about today. This was the 26th in my serious of Tuesday Session classroomlectures at Mike Caro University of Poker, Gaming, and Life Strategy. It was delivered March 23, 1999 and hasbeen specially enhanced for Card Player. The title of my talk was…

Profitable things to watch in a poker game

1. The vast majority of players simply give up on trying to observe seriously, because the task istoo overwhelming. Trying to take poker seriously, but still not being able to discover basic traits or tells



in opponents is a classic case of "not being able to see the forest for the trees." There is so much goingon at a poker table that -- if you try to watch it all -- you will almost certainly be overwhelmed and youmight as well observe nothing. You will seldom observe the most profitable things in poker if you try tolook for everything. The trick is to focus on one thing at a time.

Students are often amazed by the results they get when they focus on just one thing. When you look forsomething specific, miracles can happen. Sometimes you see what you're looking for and sometimesyou don't. But when you try to focus on everything, you are overwhelmed and important things can gounobserved. You almost never see what you're looking for, because you're looking for too much.

The more experienced you become, the more things you can focus on and still get results. But whenyou're still learning and having little success spotting poker tells or understanding your foes, use the ruleof one.

2. This is not an absolute, set-in-stone list of things to look for or how to observe. Everything we'regoing to talk about today is collectively only one example of how I might teach somebody to go aboutobserving things at a poker table. You can incorporate today's tips into your own game plan, add some,subtract others. Or you can just take advantage of these specific tips, exactly as presented.

3. First question: Is this game worth my time? That's the first thing that demands your attention. If thegame is so tough that there's no profit in it or if there is a better game available, you shouldn't be in that

seat. You can get a good idea about whether a game is worthwhile even before you take a seat. In thefirst hour of play, keep asking yourself what things are happening that you clearly know you wouldn't (orshouldn't) do. If you don't spot any of these mistakes, the game is probably not very profitable.

And that's one of the key lessons I've learned over my years of playing poker. I need to see mistakesmade by others that I wouldn't make myself. If I can't spot these, I'm probably in a bad game. The onlyregular exception I make is against players who are not making many tactical errors but exhibit powerfultells. Then I'll play because I won't be able to take advantage of such blatant tells in another game whereopponents seem otherwise to be playing more poorly.

4. Second question: What is my fantasy seat. By applying the criteria we've talked about in previouslessons (sit to the left of the loose players so they act before you, also sit to the left of knowledgeable,aggressive players, and sit to the right of tight non-entity players), decide what seat you would most liketo have. If an opportunity arises allowing you to take that seat, take it.

If you don't focus from time to time on what seat you would ideally like to have, you'll likely be too late tomake a switch if that seat becomes available.

5. Try to reconstruct hands. Nothing else gives you as much insight into the way opponents really play.Focus on just one opponent and - after seeing the showdown and while the next deal is being prepared -go back mentally and try to equate that player's hand with how he played at each stage of the action.

You will discover wondrous new things about an opponent's habits when you try to put the picturetogether after the fact and figure out how he arrived at the showdown. Most world class players do thisinstinctively.

6. When looking for tells, focus on just one player. Other tells from other players involved in the hand

might become apparent, anyway. The main reason players can't spot tells is that they don't focus on justone player at a time. Remember, too many trees and you can't see the forest.

7. When you're out of a hand and you don't feel like observing, don't. I believe that one of the mainreasons players don't learn observational skills - and thereby sacrifice profit - is that observing constantlyis agony. It's better to let your mind rest when it wants to rest. Always observe when you're in a hand.Otherwise: When it's comfortable to observe do; when it's not, don't.

Yes, you can force yourself to concentrate more and play a little better for short periods. But mostpeople will find that they "burn out" quickly and are unable to play longer sessions in profitable games ifthey force concentration while their mind rebels. I believe that in those long, profitable games, youshould let your brain relax between hands whenever it wants to.

8. A simple, accurate way to rate your table. For 20 hands that you're not involved in: (a) Add 1 point for

each call; (b) Subtract 1 point for each raise; and (c) Subtract 1 extra point for each check-raise (minus 2points total). First bets are ignored in the count. Re-raises count as a single raise (minus 1 point). Allplayers' actions count, even when they act more than once on a single betting round. The higher the



score, the better.

You'll have to compare your results to other games of the same size, type, and number of players. But soon you'llknow with surprising accuracy how profitable today's game is compared to yesterday's. Twenty hands may seemlike too small a statistical sample, and sometimes it is. But usually it's enough to tell how profitable your game isrelative to others you've played or will play. Try it. -MC

27th Lecture - Poker Leakage - Profit Lost

Poker Leakage - Profit Lost This lecture took place on March 30, 1999 and was the 27th in the series. This article appeared in Card Player Magazine December 15, 1999.

It's hard to be a poker hero without the profit. Maybe you know enough to pummel others into poker powder. Justdust. Worthless little winless weasels without a prayer against you. Fine. But in order to do that, you've got toactually take their money. Just being good enough to take their money won't win you any awards. Nobody noticesthat.

And one big reason most knowledgeable players don't actually take home the money over a long period of time isleaks. Michael Wiesenberg's Official Dictionary of Poker, the definitive work on poker terminology, lists the first ofthree definitions of "leak" this way: 1. (n) Flaw (in one's play). "I can't win; there must be a leak in my play."

Usually, leaks in experienced players' games are not centered on what they don't know but, rather, on what theydo wrong that they know they shouldn't. They lose because of bad habits. Bad habits and leaks can be the samethings.

So, today, let's investigate this problem. This material comes from the 27th in my serious of Tuesday Sessionclassroom lectures at Mike Caro University of Poker, Gaming, and Life Strategy. Originally, I talked about this onMarch 30, 1999. The following is from the handout that accompanied the lecture and has been speciallyenhanced for Card Player. The title of my talk was…

Plugging some leaks that cause big losses

1. The water tank analogy. For years, I have asked students to think about their bankroll in a way I'm going toteach you today. Once you get this analogy into your head, it's very hard to get it out. It's probably one of themost useful motivational techniques I know. Here's how it works…

Think of your bankroll as precious water in a world of drought. The more you have, the richer you'll be. All thewater you will ever acquire is kept in an above-ground water storage tank, like those used by some cities.Imagine that you acquire water, climb up a ladder and add it - one bucket at a time - to a huge holding tank.When you first start playing poker, your tank is empty. You need to spill a little water into the tank to get theprocess started. As you continue to play poker seriously, you hope your tank will get fuller and fuller.

But what if there are holes in your tank? Then you have leaks, right? I believe it's just plain silly to compensate forthese leaks by working harder and harder - playing more hours and learning more sophisticated strategy.

Working harder should add extra income, not compensate for income lost. So, the first thing to do is plug theholes.

2. Threats to your water supply. But it's not just leaks we need to worry about. Leaks are our topic of discussiontoday, and they are problems you can fix; but there are other things that can damage your bankroll. Remember,your bankroll is like your water supply, and it can be threatened in these ways:

(1) Through evaporation (living expenses);(2) Dry spells (your luck is temporarily bad);(3) Extravagant use (spending your bankroll on things you don't need);(4) Leaks (problems with your game that wholly or partially defeat all your hard work).

3. Your ability to improve. You can't do much about evaporation and dry spells, but you can cut extravagant use(of water or of your bankroll) and you can plug leaks.

4. Filling the tank. Imagine learning everything you can about poker. You play well in most aspects of the game.



This is like working hard to fill your water tank. But as you put water in, water spills out through the holes. Theseleaks can be enough to cause you to go broke or, at least, to limit your wins. In either case, fixing these leaksshould be done before you spend any more effort learning more poker strategy (or struggling harder to fill theleaking water tank).

5. Some major leaks. In today's lecture, I have chosen to tell you about 12 leaks that you should correct, if theyapply to you. They are:

(a) Trying to impress weaker opponents.

It's very frustrating to know you're better than your opponents but not able to prove it to them or the other playersin the short term. That's the way poker is, though. Profit is long-term. For mere minutes, hours, days, even weeksor months, you can suffer bad luck. Remember, this is a dry spell, during which water evaporates from the tankholding your profit. At these times, your weaker opponents seem stronger, and you can get frustrated. It's humannature to want to choose tricky plays designed to impress weaker opponents. Unfortunately, poker isn't a gamewhere it's easy to impress them in the short term. There's just too much short-term luck in poker. Instead, youshould strive to impress yourself with long-term profit. One of the biggest leaks that experienced players have issoothing their own egos by trying to impress weak foes.

(b) Playing more aggressively when you're losing.

When opponents see you lose, they're often inspired and they play better. All the marginal bets that you normallymake for value suddenly become unprofitable. You need to tighten up your game, simply because youropponents aren't as timid or predictable. Failing to do this is a major leak.

(c) Raising too aggressively when you have to act first next round.

Always be aware of your position. If you are going to have to act first on the next betting round, you don't have apositional advantage, and you need to be very careful about raising or reraising. Overaggressive raising from badposition is a leak you should plug.

(d) Folding too frequently on late rounds.

Strangely, some players who are disciplined and otherwise play credible poker actually fold too often on laterbetting rounds. The bigger the pot grows in proportion to the size of the bet in a fixed-limit game, the more youshould call. Thinking yourself out of calling on a he-probably-has-it-this-time basis is a leak.

(e) Reluctance to settle for a small loss.

Many players treat poker like each session is a separate ballgame. They want to win for that session. This makesno sense at all. I teach that you are always exactly even when the next hand is dealt. Your objective is to makethe best decisions right now, resulting in the best chance at profit or the smallest loss. Anything else is a leak.When you refuse to settle for a small loss, you're playing a meaningless mental game of win-loss. You are apt toplay poorly in pursuit of a victory - and that's not what poker is about. It's about long-range profit, not daily wins.

(f) Playing a bigger-limit game when a smaller game is more profitable.

Egos can cause some players to enjoy bigger limits. Unless you've decided that honing your skills againsttougher opponents is beneficial, don't play in a higher-limit game if there's more money to be made at a lowerlimit.

(g) Making marginal raises against deceptive foes.

This is one of the biggest leaks in poker. Save those aggressive, daring raises for opponents who are intimidatedand easy to predict. Doing otherwise will cost you money. Deceptive opponents are terrible targets for aggressiveraises.

(h) Bluffing with hands that can only chase away weaker hands.

Be careful about trying to bluff opponents who will only call if they have you beat and will always call if they haveyou beat. These attempted bluffs have no value (unless is psychological and planned). For instance, anytime you



hold a weak ace in hold 'em on the river against a very loose caller, you should not bluff. You will almost alwaysget called if you're beat (often by a better ace!) and almost never get called if you have the better hand. This is aterrible bet, but not an uncommon one. It's a leak.

(i) Complaining about bad luck while at the table.

Opponents don't sympathized; they just become inspired by your revelations of bad fortune. They think, "Hey,there's someone unluckier than I am! I can beat him!" And they play better.

(j) Making others self-conscious about bad plays.

This is an ugly leak. When you make opponents feel bad about the way they play, you're making it painful forthem to supply you with profit. You're also taking their fun out of poker. Encourage bad plays. Let your weakopponents have fun. If it's in your nature, you can even giggle when you get beat. Chastising opponents forplaying bad is stupid. In fact, in every case ever recorded in the history of poker, it's a whole lot more stupid thanthe play being chastised.

(k) Bringing a serious winning image to the poker table.

The last thing you want to do is look like you've come to take your opponents' money. This can be your attitude,but you shouldn't convey it to anyone else. Look like you're there to have fun and you'll make the money for whichyou came.

(l) Betting marginal hands after bluffers check.

Big, big leak here. Habitual bluffers tend to check when they don't have hands worthy of a bluff. Adisproportionately large percentage of what remains are calling hands. Remember, many bluffs that seem tosucceed actually win with hands that would have won in a showdown, anyway - garbage versus garbage. This iswhy most players think they do better bluffing than they actually do. They tend to give themselves credit for eachbluff, whereas many times they would have won even without betting. Often, by "bluffing," you've taken a situationwhere you would have won about half the time in a showdown and made it into a certain win. In fact, one of mybiggest secrets is that occasional correct "bluffing" can mean turning fifty-fifty showdown chances into sure wins.But when a habitual bluffer checks, you probably don't have this opportunity and you are seldom getting correct

pot odds for the bluff.

6. All these leaks (and hundreds more) keep you from filling your tank and growing your bankroll. Plugging leaks should be priority one!

Oh, by the way, merry Christmas, happy holidays, and whatever else would be appropriate for me to say should Iever develop social graces. I mean that from my heart. -MC

29th Lecture - Do You Know When To Shift Gears In Poker?

Do You Know When To Shift Gears In Poker?This lecture took place on April 13, 1999 and was the 29th in the

series. The columns based on these lectures first appeared in Card Player Magazine.

Doyle Brunson, the twice world champion of poker and Hall of Fame member, talks a lot about "shifting gears." Ofcourse, now that almost everybody drives a car with an automatic transmission, the concept of shifting gears maynot have the impact it once did. So, pretend you're driving a big old truck or a small sports car without automatic.You need to shift to match driving conditions.

In poker, you can shift gears by changing from a very aggressive style of play to a more defensive one, from tightto loose, from bluff mode to non-bluff mode and back again. The object of shifting gears is to keep opponents offguard.

The nice thing about shifting gears in poker is that you always know right away that you've shifted, but youropponents may throw thousands of dollars your way before they figure it out. But, what if your opponents aren't

paying any attention to you? Then, shifting gears is silly. You might as well just make your most profitable long-range decision on every play. There's no reason to sacrifice the top choice in an effort to throw your opponents



off-guard, because they simply aren't reacting to you.

But that last type of opponent is more theoretical than actual. All opponents react to what you do to some extent,whether they realize it or not. Still, changing gears just for the sake of it doesn't accomplish much. You need touse the right gear at the right time. No sense cruising along the highway, making good time toward yourdestination, with no traffic, thinking, "Hey, I haven't shifted gears for a while, maybe I'll shift down to first gear andgradually rebuild my speed from there."

So, today we'll talk about shifting gears correctly. This material comes from the 29th in my serious of TuesdaySession classroom lectures at Mike Caro University of Poker, Gaming, and Life Strategy. The lecture was held onApril 13, 1999. The following is from the handout that accompanied the lecture and has been specially enhancedfor Card Player. The title of my talk was…

Shifting Gears for the Right Reasons

1. Shifting gears is simply the act of changing tactics suddenly between tight and loose, betweenaggressive and passive, and back again. There is no word-class player who stays in the same gearall the time. You can't maximize your profit without shifting gears, but shifting gears for the wrong reasoncan just cost you money. Sure, if your opponents are playing strict game theory without making anyadjustments in accordance with how you play, you can only lose money by shifting gears. There's simply

no reason to do it.

Shifting gears should only be done to confuse opponents or to enhance your image. There is no otherreason whatsoever to shift. However, this does not mean that you shouldn't "randomize" your decisions,even against some opponents who may not be paying attention when you change tactics. If you'replaying against an excellent opponent who is using game theory to his benefit (whether perfectly orimperfectly, whether consciously or unconsciously), you need to vary your decisions. Bet sometimes, butnot always, with given hands. Bluff at random, but at the right frequency.

But shifting gears is different from this kind of sudden randomization. Shifting gears means you'vechanged your basic mode of aggression or deception and intend to stay in that new mode for manyhands, many minutes, or maybe for hours.

2. There are only four good reasons to shift gears.1. To be less predictable and more confusing;2. To attack their money;3. To defend your money;4. To let opponents self-destruct.

3. Shifting to appear less predictable only matters against certain players. They are ones whootherwise (consciously or unconsciously) would understand how you're playing and who would andcould take advantage if you stayed in the same gear.

4. Don't shift unless you need to. Stay in your most profitable gear as much as possible. If you don'tneed to shift, don't!

5. Which gears work best? Consider a low gear (conservative and unaggressive) against tight, sensibleopponents in rake games, because a fast strategy will eat up your profits in rakes. Also use a low gearwhen you've been seen losing or otherwise haven't been able to establish a dynamic image - but have

tried. This is very important, because normally borderline bets and raises are unprofitable againstopponents who are inspired by your bad luck and may play better and become more deceptive as aresult.

Middle gears (sometimes aggressive, but also sometimes defensive) work best against aggressive andsensible opponents, but you should often shift up or down from middle gears. Middle gears should alsobe used against opponents who bluff often. In that case, middle gear often can mean calling, but notraising.

High (fast) gears should be used against opponents who are intimidated by your image. Also use highgears while you are building your image. When you're winning against weak opponents whose mainfault is that they call too much with bad hands and don't raise enough with valuable hands, go into highgear and stay there unless conditions change.

6. The simple truth about shifting gears. Your primary goal should be to get into medium-high gear andstay there as much as possible. But -- except in rare games where opponents call too much, raise too



little, and don't adapt -- you will lose money if you stay locked in the highest gear.7. When you suddenly shift gears, you have the advantage! Even the most observant opponent has no

way to tell that you shifted right away. This advantage of "acting first" in shifting your strategy beforeyour opponents shift in response is available to all players. Make sure you use it often and hope thatyour strongest opponents don't use it as much.

8. Even unobservant opponents can be confused by gear shifting. Unconsciously they sense volatilityand become more timid and play worse against you.

9. BIG MISTAKE: When you're in high gear and controlling the game… You should almost never shiftdown to play a big hand deceptively. Just keep betting and raising. Take advantage of your aggressiveand deceptive image as long as it's working. - MC

31st Lecture - Motivational Tips That Save Your Bankroll

Motivational Tips That Save Your BankrollThis lecture took place on April 27, 1999 and was the 31st in the series. The columns based on these lectures first appeared in Card Player Magazine.

Silver, Our Beloved Poker Parrot, Passes On -- Plus Some Bankroll Salvation

We're sad. Pets are pets and people are people, I guess. Pets die. People get over the hurt after awhile. I'vedone it lots of times. But Silver was so special. And he touched many of your lives as the "Poker Parrot" - anAfrican Grey who was the official mascot of Mike Caro University of Poker. He even had a poker book dedicatedto him and made an appearance in a poker video.

I'm a skeptic. I'd always believed that many people interpreted animal behavior in a way that portrayed pets ashaving more human emotion and intelligence than seemed justified. But then I bought my wife Phyllis a parrot 11years ago for our fifth anniversary. I knew little about pets and almost nothing about parrots at the time. So, it was just a happy accident that I brought home an African Grey parrot and later learned about ongoing scientificstudies that ranked them among the smartest non-humans on earth. Unlike most other parrots, Greys don't justmimic words you teach them. They learn words on their own and make up sentences, which they use in context.

Silver would say to my wife, "Mommy, I want to take a shower now," or "I want my breakfast," or "I want to goupstairs now." He would never say these things at inappropriate times or just to hear himself speak. In fact, hepieced together so many sentences, I can't remember them all. But after he fell sick and lost strength two weeksago, the only two things he could remember to say were, "I love you," and "I wanna go to sleep now."

If correctly cared for, Greys can l ive to be 50 to 70 years old. Nobody seems to know for sure. Although under thecare of one of the best specialists in the world, Silver died peacefully at the age of just 12, on our pillow at 8 a.m.,Saturday, January 29, 2000. He remains the MCU mascot. And he remains in Phyllis' heart. Mine, too.

About five months ago, Silver attended the graduation ceremonies for our MCU Introduction to Poker course atHollywood Park. When our chief administrator, Debbie Parks, began to speak, Silver seemed shocked by theshattered silence, and shouted, "Be quiet." The room was washed in laughter. In a perverse way, this made meproud.

Like many things I buy on whim, Silver was paid for in cash out of a poker winning. But, unless you have anabundant bankroll, you should be careful when you spend pieces of it capriciously. We'll talk about that and moretoday. The following is taken from the 31st in my serious of Tuesday Session classroom lectures at Mike CaroUniversity of Poker, Gaming, and Life Strategy. The lecture was held on April 27, 1999. The following is from thehandout that accompanied the lecture and has been specially enhanced for Card Player - although, because ofthe space consumed by the previous tribute to Silver, fewer additions were made than usual. The title of my talkwas…

Motivational Tips That Save Your Bankroll

1. Your luck is not guaranteed to break even, not in your lifetime. The trick is to do better with your luck thanothers would do with the same luck. Life isn't fair. Some people spend years in hospitals or get struck bylightening. Others stumble upon unforeseen riches. Poker isn't fair, either. Don't expect it to be.

2. Luck isn't only in the cards. If you're a regular player, you probably will get about your expected allotment of



flushes this year. But you might not get them at the right times, and they might not win. There is more bankrollfluctuation due to the few key situations you encounter than to the simple strength of the hands you are dealt.

But, the biggest luck factor in poker is whether you happen upon the best games and whether you are there onthe few really great times when players come to unload bushels of money. And, just how lucky will you be inthose rare games, even if you are fortunate enough to get a seat? Also, if you jump around between limits, itmatters whether you win your best pots in smaller limits or in bigger limits. Because of these layers of luck, pokeris more volatile than many assume. Over time, your results will be more influenced by fluctuations in gameconditions than by fluctuations in cards.

3. An easy way to stick to your game plan. If you must "decide" not to play A-10 in hold 'em from an earlyposition every time you encounter it, you might choose right most of the time. But sometimes - under the pressureof the moment - you'll decide wrong. This can't happen if you divide yourself into two persons - one givescommands and stays home. The other follows orders and goes out to play poker. If you want to change yourgame plan, you need to go home for permission. Then you can't make the wrong choice, because you have nochoice.

You need to give yourself some flexibility to adapt to conditions. You might want to play that A-10 against anopponent who clearly is entering pots with inferior hands or one that you can easily outplay. But, unless thosepre-specified conditions arise, you must obey your commands - the ones you gave yourself before you left home

and locked your door behind you.

4. There will come a time when it matters. Sometimes things at poker or away from poker look so gloomy thatseemingly nothing could make it worse and you feel as if "it doesn't matter" right now. But there will come a timewhen it will matter. Play for that time.

5. Do your job when you're playing poker. Whether you win or lose is none of your business! Making sure thecards break even is a tough job. Let someone else do it.

I sometimes seat a student on the floor and have him or her cut out pictures from magazines representing eightplayers in a game. Then I have the student deal starting hands one at a time and decide which player to givethem to. The student must try to remember who was left out of good hands recently. After awhile, this task getsvery tiring. Then I ask, "Is this the job you want in poker?" Of course, the point is that seeing that the hands arefairly distributed isn't a job you want to have. Let someone else do it. You just stick to your job - making the rightdecisions at the poker table.

6. Keep an adequate bankroll. Most people underestimate the size they need for comfort. They tend to spendportions prematurely that they think are excessive. This often means they can start with, say, $3,000, win$17,000, spend $10,000 they think is unnecessary, lose $10,000 and end up flat broke and begging. Everyoneviews them as losers. But, actually, we've just looked at a $7,000 win example, and a player who could haveexpanded his bankroll from $3,000 to $10,000 had he not spent the profit. You'd be surprised how many playersfail because they spend their winnings excessively.

7. There's a difference between important decisions and important consequences. Sometimes things thatwill have important consequences can't be influenced by you, and that's when you should spend your time withimportant decisions - the ones you can influence. Luck has important consequences, but you can't do anythingabout it, so there are never important decisions involving pure luck. Spend your time deciding something else. If

choosing one door at random means you die and choosing the other door means you live, you shouldn't wasteany time choosing a door. Instead, you should use your mental energy making a decision that might help you ifyou do live. The first type of choice has important consequences - life and death, in this case. But it is not animportant decision. Just choose a door and be done with it.

8. If you think there might be cheating, leave the game. It isn't necessary that you're right (and you usuallywon't be). The mere fact that you'll be wasting your mental resources worrying about cheating instead of strategyis enough to make you play worse. Leave.

9. Don't let time dictate bad play. Most people play unprofitable hands simply because they hate waiting for thenext deal. If players received new starting hands as soon as they folded, most would show discipline. The trick isto learn the art of feeling bad when the winds of probability are blowing the wrong way during the hand. Once youmotivate yourself to despise being in a pot with wind in your face, rather than at your back, you'll feel good aboutfolding. When you decide not to play bad hands that would otherwise need to fight the winds of probability, just

envision that you're sitting out a storm under shelter. You'll feel good about waiting. - MC



32nd Lecture - Using "Talking Tells" To Destroy Opponents

Using "Talking Tells" To Destroy Opponents

This lecture took place on May 11, 1999 and was the 32nd in the series. The columns based on these lectures first appeared in Card Player Magazine. In Poker, What You Hear Matters

Before we get to today's lesson, I want to say a couple things.

MCU At Sea

First, I'm going on the Card Player cruise to Alaska in June with my wife Phyllis. When you book your cruise, youcan add just $195 ($295 for a couple) and get five hourly presentations on skills I believe will add thousands ofdollars to your poker income every year. I'm carefully crafting these five hour-long presentations to cover only themost valuable aspects of winning poker.

We're scheduling these sessions so they won't interfere with your meals, entertainment, poker play, or in-port

excursions. And, if you've never cruised to Alaska before, this is one of the greatest adventures you'll experience.You'll walk on glaciers, land on lakes, tour towns you never imagined, and even eat at remote hunting lodges.Exactly what you choose to do is up to you, but Phyllis and I rate this cruise as one of our best vacations ever -and that's why we're repeating it.

We're calling my sessions MCU At Sea. That's because they're a function of Mike Caro University of Poker,Gaming, and Life Strategy. MCU At Sea was Card Player owner Barry Shulman's idea. And it was also Shulmanwho talked me down from my suggested $1,495 price for the five sessions. He pointed out the PR value of beingwith the very finest of poker people who take the CP cruises - people who might deal with me in other ways in thefuture. So, you can thank Barry Shulman for the low prices. I'd be honored if you'd join me on this cruise. We'llgiggle, have fun, and inbetween we'll learn a lot about poker. Details are on page ??.

David James' Big Blind

Second, David James showed a rough cut of his new movie, the Big Blind on February 11th. James - a long-timepoker player -- wrote, directed, and produced the film himself. The screening was hosted by MCU at HollywoodPark Casino. Are you wondering what I thought of it? Fine, I'll tell you.

It was significantly better than I expected for a rough cut. James explained that when the final cut is presented -with the inserted clips, enhanced sound, and reselected scenes - even the storyline itself could be different. "Youwon't recognize it," he speculated before an audience almost exclusively populated by members of the onlinenewsgroup rec.gambling.poker. The screening was an event within ESCARGOT, organized and promoted bynone other than Card Player columnist and renowned poker expert Lou Krieger. You probably wonder whatESCARGOT stands for, but you'll have to keep wondering, because I forgot and I'm really late with this column.

Anyway, back to David James' Big Blind. The whole room echoed with laughter during many parts, because thepoker actions were true to life - and James' fictional characters were ones we all seemed to know. I'm hoping that

James sells this movie to someone who will distribute it with the same care with which it was written andproduced. The Big Blind is potentially a big winner.

When you play poker, you've got to listen - really listen. I don't mean to your poker teachers or to those littlevoices inside you. I don't mean listen to your Walkman or to the cocktail waitress. I mean, you've got to listen toyour opponents. The things they say and the sounds they make translate into tons of profit. And that's our topicfor today. The following is taken from the 32nd in my series of Tuesday Session classroom lectures at Mike CaroUniversity of Poker, Gaming, and Life Strategy. The lecture was held on May 11, 1999.

Using "Talking Tells" to Destroy Opponents

1. You need to grasp solid strategic concepts to win at poker. But, after that, it's tells and psychology - notstatistics and complex tactics - that account for most of your profit. If you don't truly understand the basics of

poker, you aren't ready to use tells or to apply psychological concepts.

Most of the things I teach about poker are advanced. They can account for the majority of your profit. But, if you



don't first understand the fundamental concepts of winning poker, you won't win. You've got to master the basicsfirst. So, with that in mind - let's move on.

2. Not all profitable tells are visual. Some of the most important ones you can't see at all. They're audible. Yousimply have to listen for them. And if you listen well enough, you can almost beat poker with your eyes closed!

3. Four keys to spoken tells: (1) What the player says; (2) when the player says it; (3) how the player says it; (4)what the player doesn't say.

It's important to pay attention to what your opponents say. Hostile or goading speech generally means a stronghand. Most players fear that their combative words will irritate you into calling, so this verbal behavior is seldom abluff (though sometimes it is - so know you opponents!). Natural, non-poker conversation is an indication of aplayer at ease. That player is seldom worried about his hand and isn't likely to be bluffing. He is also - at thatmoment - a poor target for a value bet. If a player suddenly starts talking as you're betting or calling, that's almostalways a last-second desperation effort to make you reconsider. If a player speaks in negative tones about hishand, he is usually strong. If he's excessively cheerful or friendly in his voice, he's usually weak. If a player tries toavoid engaging in conversation after betting, that's a clue that he is more likely than usual to be bluffing.

4. Listen for talk that sounds natural. The more naturally an opponent engages in conversation, the less likely heis to be bluffing. And the more casual an opponent's conversation seems when it's your turn to act, the less willing

you should be to bet. (This is just another way of acting uninterested, similar to looking away. When a player islooking away, he is trying to make your bet seem safe by giving you nothing to worry about. When a player keepstalking casually, he is also trying to avoid giving you clues that he may be interested in the hand.)

I have used this audible tell to great profit. If someone is talking about how to fix his washing machine as you startto bet, and if he continues to talk about his washing machine, you should be careful. Don't make any weakwagers or value bets. True, sometimes this player is so weak that he just doesn't care. He's simply waiting tothrow his hand away. But, more often he's not worried. He has a significant hand. It's when a player stops talkingor has trouble sounding rational while talking that you should suspect weakness. When that happens, theopponent is worried - and probably weak.

5. Humming and soft whistling. This often ceases either (1) immediately when an opponent bluffs, or (2) laterwhen you look as if you're beginning to call. Those rare opponents who whistle under their breath are goldmines.They will almost always stop whistling when they bluff. Same for humming.

6. Believe them! Players who tell you they have a big hand are usually telling you the truth! Not always, of course,but usually. They are waiting to take pride in showing down their hands and saying, "I told you so," in words orgestures of their chosing.

7. Listening to the word. Listen carefully for an opponent to say the word "bet." If there is anything sad or reluctantabout it, this usually means a strong hand, so seldom call.

8. Breathing. Players who pause to catch their breath quietly, as if they don't want you to know they're strugglingto breathe normally, are usually bluffing. Remember, bluffers have trouble breathing naturally and sometimeschoose not to breathe at all. Players who hold big hands also often have trouble breathing naturally, but theirbreathing tends to be quite audible, and you should seldom call their bets with medium-strong hands.

9. Forced conversation. Whenever an opponent has bet and his conversation seems unnatural, unfocused, orforced, there's a very great chance that he is bluffing. That's because it's hard to concentrate on casualconversation when you're in immediate danger.

10. Major tip. When considering a borderline bet for value, first look away. Just listen. Even close your eyes if youchoose. You can often "hear" the silence and sense the stillness. After an opponent has bluffed, he will usually besilent, too. But the action I'm talking about is before your opponent has acted. It's your turn to act. Ominouslysilent players are often trying not to do anything to discourage your bet. That usually means your opponent isready to pounce. So, don't bet! - MC

33rd Lecture - Luck Matters In Poker



Luck Matters In Poker

The following lecture took place on May 18, 1999 and was the 33rd in the series. This article first appeared in Card Player Magazine.

Mostly Because Your Opponents Think So

I don't allow my students to be superstitious. The next hand always is based on a nearly random shuffle of cards,favoring no one in particular. No matter what has happened in the past, the next deal always means a brand-newstart for you. The cards don't remember who won the last hand. But even if they did remember, they probablywould be too lazy to gang up on you. It takes too much effort. The cards don't conspire to favor certain players orto aggravate others. But streaks do exist. I can use powerful computer algorithms to deal cards for billions ofhands. Then what? Well, then you can look at those hands and see things that will amaze you! You'll suffer ahundred hands in a row without winning a pot. You'll win with three full houses in a row. You name it, you'll see it.

The Way it Should Be

But this is all natural. This is what's supposed to happen. This is the way it should be. Streaks are normal, not

something to be surprised about. If you flip a coin 20 times and it comes out tails, tails, tails, heads, tails, tails,heads, tails, heads, heads, heads, heads, heads, heads, tails, heads, tails, tails, tails, heads - that's nothingamazing. There were six heads in a row, but so what? If the sequence came heads, tails, heads, tails, heads,tails, heads, tails, heads, tails, heads, tails, heads, tails, heads, tails, heads, tails, heads, tails, that's peculiar.Each sequence is equally rare (just over a million to one against, in fact), but sequences with recognizablepatterns suggest that something might be interfering with random events. There might be a bias - not necessarily,but maybe. There also may be a bias when you see long streaks, but probably not. Always remember thatstreaks are natural, something you need to learn to live through. If you don't, you will be unprepared to win atpoker.

Luck has influence, but the longer you play poker, the weaker its influence. And the big secret is that the moreyou act as if forces other than fair and random distribution of cards determine your fate, the worse you'll do. If thegame is honest, there are no mysterious forces to fear.

But your opponents will fall victim to the illusion of luck - and that's good. You just need to figure out how to takeadvantage, and I'm here to help you. The following is taken from the 33rd in my series of Tuesday Sessionclassroom lectures at Mike Caro University of Poker, Gaming, and Life Strategy. The lecture was held on May 18,1999. This is from the handout that accompanied the lecture, and it has been specially enhanced.

The title of the lecture was ...

Using the Illusion of Luck to Win Money

I have witnessed the longest streak in poker history. So, nothing you tell me about good luck or bad luck is goingto impress me. I saw a woman in the 1970s go years as a "card rack." But there's nothing supernatural about this.Luck just happens. There is no force behind it except the power of probability and "probability storms" that havethe illusion of supernatural power. Trust probability to do the right thing. Eventually, it will.

1. The woman was named Sumi. There is no doubt that she got much better than average cards in keysituations for two years running. That doesn't mean that she got big hands all the time, but clearly, shehad so many unusually big hands in key situations that she came to believe that this was the norm. Shealso tended to risk an extra raise very frequently. This magic combination of very aggressive play, herobvious expectation that good cards would come, and the fact that they did come in a history-makingstreak meant that she had tremendous power over her opponents. This was the single event that did themost to convince me how powerful a weapon good luck can be in the minds of opponents. This is why Ioften have stated that it's much better to declare that you're lucky than to let opponents know that you'rerunning badly. If opponents truly believe you're lucky, you actually can see the fear in their eyes.

Conceptually, luck is the most powerful element of profit. But not your luck. It's everyone's luck - yoursand your opponents' - that influences the way players will react. You can tap into their reactions to luckto make much profit. But don't trick yourself into thinking that luck is earning the money for you. You're

earning the money because you understand the absurdity of putting faith in luck. And your opponents



are losing the money because they do not understand this.

2. There is no guarantee that the cards will break even in poker in your lifetime. But if you have skill andyou make each decision matter, you'll probably win even without your "fair share" of luck.

3. Even in life itself, things don't break even. Some people waste away in hospitals and other prance downpretty paths. In poker, it's possible for two break-even players to sit in the same $75-$150 game for ayear. One might win $150,000. One might lose $150,000. It will be all dumb luck, but which one do youthink will be giving the lessons? Which one will be taking the lessons?

Even if the cards do break even, other elements may not. Some of these other elements are: (1)whether you are able to find the best games; (2) the size of the games you're playing when you get yourbest and biggest cards; (3) getting backing for games beyond your bankroll; and (4) being in the rightplace when the "producer" comes to town to unload $10 million.

4. Good luck has great influence on your foes. They lose by calling more often with weak hands, becausethey can't believe what they're seeing. (Also, there's not as much discredit in being beaten by someoneon a winning streak, so the weak calls won't be scrutinized if they lose.) They lose by not betting orraising with winning hands, because they're intimidated. If you think opponents stay out of your waywhen they think you're running well, you need to re-examine this. You need to make continual value betsand raises when you're conspicuously lucky. Opponents will call more. They also will be less likely to

maximize their advantage by raising when they have quality hands. Both of these factors play heavily inyour favor and dictate that you should go into high gear and bet and raise with small advantages. You'veprobably heard that so-and-so "knows how to play a rush." Well, now you know what that means.Nothing more.

5. Opponents tend to call more liberally whether they're on a winning streak or a losing streak. On awinning streak, they think that luck is with them and they should stretch their calling to take advantage.On a losing streak, they just don't care.

6. This means that you should value bet less often into opponents who are conspicuously lucky orconspicuously unlucky.

Streaks can be seen only in the rear-view mirror. They always are things that already have happened.They never have any influence on what the next cards will be.

7. Bet more liberally when winning; bet less liberally when losing. When you're winning, most opponents

are too intimidated to try tricky responses to your bets. They'll usually call when weak and often won'traise when strong. But when you're losing, opponents are inspired. They play better against you. Theyraise for value when you least expect it. For this reason, value bets simply don't work as well - and oftendon't work at all - when you're losing.

8. Players who are complaining about their bad luck seldom bluff. So, seldom call. They would rather justshow their bad hands and ask, "See what I mean?"

9. Never complain about your bad luck. Opponents won't be sympathetic. They'll be inspired. And they'llplay better. Simply deny that you're experiencing bad luck. That's the road to profit.

34th Lecture - Bonus Strategies For Extra Profit At Poker

Bonus Strategies for Extra Profit at Poker

Before we arrive at today's subject, I'm very excited to announce the birth of the MCU Poker Forum. If you're on-line, this is where you can read discussions, or disagree with or add your comments about this column oranything poker-related. Go to "forum and chat."

Some of the most important strategies are not obvious. Today I want to share a few of my favorites.

The following is taken from the 34th in my series of Tuesday Session classroom lectures at Mike Caro Universityof Poker, Gaming, and Life Strategy and later appeared in Card Player magazine. The lecture was held on June1, 1999. The title of the lecture was ….

Bonus Strategies for Extra Profit at Poker

http://planetpoker.com/forum






Bonus strategy No. 1:When to "thin the field" by reraising and hoping to share what's already in the pot with areduced number of opponents is a complicated issue. I teach that this strategy often is wrong. But sometimes it'sright, and you need to keep this in mind: Often reraise with medium-strong hands when weak foes already havecalled and strong foes remain to act. This increases your profit by forcing the weak foes to call one more bet,often solidifies your last position, and chases away stronger opponents who otherwise might call the raise withhands that might beat yours.

As I've said many times, thinning the field is a righteous ambition, but actually attempting to thin the field oftencosts money. This is because you too often chase away the opponents with the weak hands you would like toplay against, and limit yourself to facing the stronger hands who refuse to be thinned.

But one really good opportunity to thin the field happens when you hold a marginally strong hand and can reraisea potentially weak hand. By reraising, you often can make it too expensive for more sophisticated opponents toenter the pot behind you with semistrong hands that might beat yours. You always should look for thisopportunity. I reraise quite liberally on the first betting round when weak opponents have routinely raised thebring-in bet or blind and more challenging players are waiting to act after me.

Bonus strategy No. 2:Seldom reraise with medium-strong hands when strong foes already have called andweak foes remain to act. This reraise pushes your luck against possibly superior hands while chasing away theweaker foes whom you'd often like to see call the pot. This strategy works for exactly the opposite reason as No.

1.

Bonus strategy No. 3:There are five basic reasons why you might choose to reraise: (1) to drive foes out whenyou're vulnerable; (2) to win more money with great hands; (3) to bluff; (4) to send a message; and (5) to leverageposition. If you're reraising for any other reason, you probably have either "entertainment" or "ego" on your mind.

I believe very strongly that even sophisticated players sometimes lapse into the bad habit of raising "by feel." Itcan be a very profitable self-discipline to ask yourself why you're reraising and make certain that the reasonmatches one of those sanctioned above.

Bonus strategy No. 4: Usually don't reraise when you have a very strong hand and you will force opponents tocall a double raise or to fold. Analysis suggests that you'll make more long-range profit by just calling and"inviting" opponents to also call.

Bonus strategy No. 5: This illustrates one of the governing truths about chasing down hands in hold'em. It'soften correct to call a bet against a lone opponent and keep calling until you see the river with just an overcardand an inside straight draw. However, you shouldn't do this if two suited cards flop - unless you hold an ace ofthat suit. Having the ace has benefits, such as: (1) If both final cards are of that suit ("runner-runner"), your flushwill win, even if your opponent has two of that suit, and (2) it's less likely that an opponent even has a flush draw,because you have the ace and that's the most motivating card for playing suited hands.

Let's say that your hand is AC 4D and the flop is 7-6-3. While it depends on your opponent, you usually shouldcall a bet. The main reasons you should call are: (1) Your ace might win against a bluff; (2) the ace and insidestraight draw generally are better than just two overcards, which many are more likely to play (because there arefour matches for the inside straight and only three for a second overcard); (3) you can get lucky and win with apair of aces; and (4) a bluffing opportunity might arise for you. Put these factors and more together and itbecomes clear that you can't just routinely fold against a lone opponent with an ace and an inside straight draw. If

you do and your opponent knows it, he'll run all over you. This applies to similar "chasing" hands, too.

Bonus strategy No. 6:In seven-card stud, don't be afraid to bet three of a kind or two big pair on the river intowhat might be a straight or flush draw. Often, the opposing hand is something else, or the flush or straight will bemissed and the opponent will call regardless with secondary strength. If you check, you're going to call the betanyway, so you gain nothing, and lose a lot of profit opportunities. True, you might get raised if you bet, but therisk usually is well worth the price. If you couple your bet with my magic words, "You're not going to believe this!"- well, you'll almost never be raised.

That latter quote is taken directly from my collection of statements designed to be worth thousands of dollars amonth! That one forces your opponent into "either ... or" thinking - that you either made something huge or you'rebluffing. The fact that you're just betting two pair for value seldom occurs to your opponent, and you often can betthis hand with impunity, not having to fear a raise.

Bonus strategy No. 7: In high-low split games on fourth and fifth streets (or on the flop and sometimes on theturn in Omaha high-low), you should tend to fold in a three-way pot with a one-way hand when an opponent



probably going the same way bets. This often is true even if you think your prospects are slightly better thanthose of the opponent who wagered! Bonus strategy No. 8: On all but the final betting round, when you holdsemi-big hands, you should tend to raise when you (1) already have last position secured or (2) can gain lastposition by chasing players out behind you. This constant quest for position should become an almost automaticpart of your strategy when you have medium-strong hands.

35th Lecture - In Poker, You Can Stay The Same And Suffer Or Adjust And Prosper

Making Poker's Most Profitable Adjustments The following lecture was the 35th Tuesday Session, held June 8, 1999, and later appeared in Card Player magazine.

Classroom Lectures: In Poker, You Can Stay The Same and Suffer,Or Adjust And Prosper Before we get to today's column, let me bring you up to date on the long-promised Caroand Cooke's Official Rules of Poker. Not that you wouldn't have guessed, but I am the reason for the delays - notRoy Cooke or John Bond, who drafted most of the text. We are in the final stages of taking comments fromplayers, dealers, and managers before going to print with the book. So, we've put the full text on-line atwww.caro.com for your evaluation. We already are enjoying broad industry support for this project, and yourcomments on specific rules would be greatly appreciated. Go to the MCU department and then click MCU Library.

And now...

You need convictions. You need to stand up tall and be a man - even if you're a woman. When you're right,you're right. Stick to your guns. Stuff like that. Fine. There's a lot of truth to that in poker. If you have a powerfulgame plan and you stubbornly stay with it despite bad luck and frustration, what's likely to happen? You're likelyto win, that's what. And if you stray, yielding to your emotions, and try to get lucky, just like the folks who areflogging you - what's likely to happen then? Ah, that's simple - you're likely to lose. So, I agree that there can beadvantages to not adjusting. But, wait! That's only true when we talk about adjustments that are illogical. Even ifwe have a powerful, proven method of winning at poker, we can improve upon it and produce more profit byadjusting correctly to conditions. You see, there's the secret. If your poker adjustments would not be logical,you're usually better off not adjusting. But if your poker adjustments would be logical, you'd be foolish not toadjust. Making the right adjustments can build your bankroll enormously. And if enormous sounds like a goodword to you, you'll like today's lesson.

The following is based on Tuesday Session #35 which took place June 8, 1999. The topic was…

"Making Poker's Most Profitable Adjustments"

1. You don't need to adjust. If you're playing perfectly and your opponents aren't, you profit from the "value"of their mistakes. This means that if both you and your opponents begin by playing perfectly and theystray – by playing too loosely or too tightly - you have the advantage. You don't need to adjust to farebetter than you would have. That's a very important theoretical concept, and I'll repeat it. You don't needto adjust at all to profit from opponents' mistakes. Now, sometimes the interaction among three or moreplayers complicates this concept. Mistakes by opponents, while costly to them, may not always benefityou specifically. But when opponents stray from their best strategies, the money they lose goessomewhere - and normally, you'll earn your share, even if you don't adjust. But even though you don'tneed to adjust, you usually will make much more profit if you do. That's what we're talking about rightnow.

2. If you don't adjust correctly, you'll lose money. Because you almost certainly will profit from mistakes thatyour opponents make, you usually are better off stubbornly refusing to adjust your strategy thanadjusting incorrectly. "Adjust" implies that you are varying from your normal best strategy. You need asolid reason to justify the cost. Remember, when you adjust, you're sacrificing something. We talk a lotabout shifting gears and modifying the intensity of your attack. But the main reason you do it is becauseyour opponents are human and will be influenced by it. If they simply will ignore you and play perfectly,randomizing some decisions in accordance with game theory, there's no reason for you to adjust. Ifunder those circumstances you do adjust, you're making a mistake and your opponents will profit.Fortunately, your opponents are influenced by what you say and do. So, you can adjust to manipulatethem. Also, because they're human, they don't know how to play perfectly. So, you can adjust to takeextra advantage of that.

3. "Shifting gears." Changing back and forth between high and low gears can make it very difficult foropponents to correctly respond. Yet, if your opponents stick to their game plans, they may actually gainby your random shifting. This is why it is important to shift gears at the right times for the right reasons.

But let's get specific ...4. When an opponent folds too often on the river, how should you adjust? Theoretically, you should not just



bluff more often with your hopeless hands, you should bluff always. Of course, if you do that, there is achance that your opponent will see the error that he's making and will start calling more often. For thatreason - in the real world - you should bluff as much as possible without causing your opponent tocorrect his mistake. Similarly, if an opponent calls too often on the river, you theoretically should neverbluff.

5. Adjusting to early raises. If a tight player raises in early position, adjust by folding the worst of the stronghands with which you would have raised in his position. In other words, if it's a hold'em game, and the

worst hand with which you would have raised in his position is KC QD, you should fold rather than call. Ifa loose player raises in early position, adjust by often reraising with the worst of the strong hands withwhich you would have raised in his position. In other words, if nobody else has called, you might reraisewith that same K-Q offsuit. There's profit in that, even if it doesn't seem like it.

6. What if an opponent has been losing and complaining? Adjust by betting almost all marginally stronghands for value. This opponent is: (1) unlikely to bluff, because he'd rather just let his misery continue ina quest for sympathy (so checking and calling has little value); (2) likely to call (because he doesn'tcare); and (3) unlikely to raise when he has small advantages (because he believes that he's defeatedand doesn't expect to win).

7. Value betting. Do it when you're winning and in command, and seldom do it when you're losing and notin command. Value bets (pushing marginal hands for extra profit) work best against opponents who areintimidated and are not pressing for value in return. When you're a target (often because you're losingand opponents are inspired), value bets don't work. In fact, when you're losing, you often should returnto your tightest strategy and wait for the cards to bring you out again.

8. Major tip - and one of the hardest adjustments. Never do anything fancy against deceptive, lively playersto your left. These players hold a positional advantage over you to begin with, and they increase itthrough deception and aggressiveness. You can't get into a long-term creative war with them, becausethey get to act last most of the time. You occasionally might reraise as a warning, hoping that they'llbecome more timid in the future. But that's not the main adjustment that you must make. The mainadjustment against deceptive, lively players to your left is simple - just check and call more than usual. Ifyou're a regular player handling this any other way, you're probably costing yourself thousands of dollarsevery year, even in middle-limit games.

36th Lecture - Answering Poker's Most Common Questions

Answering Poker’s Most Common QuestionsThe following lecture was the 36th Tuesday Session, held June 15, 1999, and later appeared in Card Player magazine.

Classroom Lectures: Some of Poker's Most Meaningful Questions

There are questions I get asked over and over in poker. Many of them don't have interesting answers. We'llignore them for now. But many common questions do have interesting answers, and I'll deal with some of thosetoday. And you know what? Sometimes poker players talk about interesting stuff related to the game - stuff thatsuggests a common question that they simply forget to ask. That drives me nuts. So, I'll ask some of thosequestions for them and I'll give you the answers.

The following is taken from the 36th in my series of Tuesday Session classroom lectures at Mike Caro Universityof Poker, Gaming, and Life Strategy. The lecture was held on June 15, 1999. This is from the handout thataccompanied the lecture, and it has been specially enhanced for Card Player. The title of the lecture was ...

"Answering Poker's Most Common Questions"

1. Should you play seven-card stud or hold'em?

Now that's an interesting question, and one that I hear over and over. I guess the reason is that thequestioner is either thinking about specializing in a single game or believes that one of the two forms ofpoker is the clearer path to riches. Actually, the answer is that you will earn more money overall if youlearn to profitably play seven-card stud, hold'em, and other popular forms of poker. Then, you canchoose the best game that's available at any given time. You don't want to be sitting in a hold'em game,unable to play, on that rare occasion when some Bill Gates clone unloads $10 million at the stud tablefive feet away. Just listening to the BGC giggling and not caring might permanently scar youpsychologically. However, in general, you'll have fewer fluctuations and will win more consistentlyplaying hold'em. Also, hold'em tends to be more profitable against inexperienced opponents. Assumingthat you know what you're doing, when hold'em first is introduced in a locale, the games tend to beincredibly good for a while. As new players learn that a pair of fours wasn't as good as they thought, theytend to play better and the games get tougher. And as new players who don't learn that a pair of fours



wasn't as good as they thought, they go broke and the games among surviving players become tougher.That's a good time to find a lively stud game.

2. In which game does position matter most?

Position matters most in games in which you consistently can act last during all rounds of betting and

that are neither too loose nor too tight. "Crapshoot" games with many players paying reraise prices tohope for miracle cards are not as greatly positional. You don't need to know what opponents are likely todo before they act. You already pretty much know one thing they're not going to do - fold. When you'reagainst sensible opponents, some of the best positional games are hold'em, draw, and lowball.

3. What's the most profitable advice for most players?

Quit. Since most poker players lose, and cannot easily be urged to learn enough to win, the mostprofitable advice is that which keeps them from playing. I don't want you to quit, because I think you'd bemissing one of the greatest experiences in the history of humanity. Even if you don't win overall, you'llprobably find poker to be a worthwhile adventure. But why not win?

4. When is it bad to choose a tricky alternative strategy?

When it's not needed. The most obvious and straightforward strategy makes the most money. Deviatefrom it only if there's a reason to do so, such as being deceptive for future profit or making extra moneyright now. That's a tough thing to teach, because skillful players often enjoy making unusual plays. Thetrick is to mentally condition yourself to make these plays only for profit, not for show. If there isn't a clearand compelling reason to play a poker hand in an unusual way, don't.

5. Should you play tighter on a limited bankroll?

Yes - unless the bankroll is so small that it isn't worth protecting. You need to sacrifice some of theaggressive but risky profit you'd make with daring bets, raises, and calls. Survival becomes the moreimportant factor with a limited bankroll. So, you should play tighter.

6. In hold'em, should you play 9-8 suited if first to act?

Only in a loose game without many aggressive opponents, and just sometimes. This hand, and 8-7 and7-6 suited even to a greater degree are tremendously overvalued by average players, and often areplayed unprofitably by pros. Be selective with these hands.

7. Is a player probably bluffing who says that he's bluffing?

No. But he's more likely to be bluffing than usual, and you often should call with borderline hands. We'retalking about limit poker here. Because the size of the pot usually is much greater than the size of thecall, you don't need to win very many similar calls to show a profit. A player who tells you he's bluffing issomewhat more likely to be bluffing. In fact, players verbally tell the truth about their hands a surprisingamount of the time. Of course, in most games, a player who claims to be bluffing probably is lying morethan half the time. So, you'll probably lose if you call. But he is telling the truth enough of the time that if

your decision was otherwise borderline, you should strongly consider calling.

8. What percent of players have more winning hours than losing hours?

Zero. In most full-handed poker games, an hour is too short a time for you to have a sufficient chance ofwinning the big pots that often are needed to score an overall profit. Often, you will win no potswhatsoever in an hour's time. This is easy to grasp if you asked, "What percent of players win more thanthey lose in a one-minute period?" Clearly, most players will just lose an ante - if there is one - on agiven hand, which is all you can expect to play (at most) in a minute. The same concept applies to anhour, but to a smaller degree. So, yes, I'll entertain arguments that some players in some games canhave more winning hours through eternity than losing hours – but it's not likely.

9. Who keeps accurate records of how much money they make bluffing?

Nobody. They can't. If your bluff seems successful, you're seldom sure whether the hand that was folded



was actually better than yours. This illusion - that a bluff succeeded when you might have won anyway -is one reason why so many players think a bluffing strategy works better than it does. Against mostopponents, you need to pick your bluffing spots very carefully. They tend to call too often - and thismeans that you are apt to lose money to them in the long run if you bluff.

37th Lecture - Things To Practice Beyond A Basic Winning Strategy

Things To Practice Beyond A Basic Winning StrategyThe following lecture was the 37th Tuesday Session,held June 22, 1999, and later appeared in Card Player magazine.

Classroom Lectures: Some Exercises You Can Do to Improve Your Poker

Yes, they call me "The Mad Genius of Poker," and I'm not offended. I like it. The more you get to know me, themore you realize that I really am certifiably nuts. All this stuff you hear about it being a clever act is just publicrelations babble. It's not an act. It's never been an act. Just between you and me, I wake up every single morningwishing I could be normal - but it's hopeless.

Nothing irritates me more than to hear someone try to compliment me by explaining, "Yeah, he's crazy - crazy likea fox." These are people who have assumed that I know how to control my insanity. I categorically deny this.Anyway, you may have heard of the "Mad Genius Method." It's something I attach to courses and products: LearnHow to Win Half the Wealth in America at Poker in 10 Minutes Using the Mad Genius Method. So, you'rewondering, what exactly is this MGM? I'll tell you. My MGM is simple. You learn about any one thing byneglecting all other things.

You dedicate a period of time - from a few minutes to maybe a day or a whole poker session - to focusing on oneimportant thing. Each of these exercises is called a mission. That's the basis of my 12 Days to Hold'em Successand my 11 Days to 7-Stud Success reports - one thing per poker session. Oddly, the things you think you'reneglecting don't cause you to suffer as much as you'd suppose. The things you're not concentrating on tend totake care of themselves. It's the fear of neglecting some things that causes people to focus on everything at onceand become bewildered. Little is ever learned by focusing on too much at once. The biggest proving ground forthat is the poker table, where if you concentrate on just one big thing at a time, you master poker quickly. And ifyou concentrate on too many things at the same time, you never master it at all.

Even more specifically, this is true of tells. Players who look for tells everywhere are overwhelmed and seldomsee any. Those who begin by focusing on just one player or just one action often succeed in mastering tells. So,that's the Mad Genius Method - ignore almost everything. Today we're going to look at some poker exercises thatyou can perform by using this powerful method.

The following is taken from the 37th in my series of Tuesday Session classroom lectures at Mike Caro Universityof Poker, Gaming, and Life Strategy. The lecture was held on June 22, 1999. The title of the lecture was ...

Things to Practice Beyond a Basic Winning Strategy

1. Before you add anything ... Many players believe their fundamental game plan is more profitable than it

really is. I'm urging you to think about that, and if you see any possibility that the previous sentenceapplies to you, work on your basic strategy before mastering new skills. Before you add anything to abasic winning strategy, make sure you actually have one. Here are three of the main elements of a basicwinning strategy: (1) In most full-handed limit poker games, play tighter than your typical (too loose)opponents; (2) raise aggressively with small edges; and (3) find loose and timid opponents. (And I'm justgoing to assume that you will try to play your best game all the time, because that's the key to successfor all levels of serious players.) Two not-quite-so-important things that should be incorporated into yourbasic winning strategy are: Sit to the left of loose players and tough-aggressive players so that youmaximize profit with positional advantage, and quit if the game isn't excellent. When you're at the earlystages of becoming a pro, you need excellent opportunities for profit, and you should tend to declineother games. Top pros can play more hands and more games, because they don't need quite as big aninitial edge to turn a profit. But while you're still advancing, keep you basic strategy mostly targeted atplaying stronger hands in weaker games.

2. Just one thing. Usually - in accordance with the Mad Genius Method o learning - try to practice just one

new technique or make one new observation at a time. Don't worry about anything else; just do that onething. And here are the six things (A through F) I've chosen for you to practice beyond your basicwinning game.



3. Thing A. Make all bets and raises crisp, certain, and slightly exaggerated. This tends to keep opponentsin line and makes them reluctant to raise with marginal advantages, thereby surrendering back to yousome of the profit that could have been theirs. This also helps promote an active image and helps youbecome a force to be reckoned with. However, there are many other ways to wager, and reasons forthem. But when you're just adding to your basic game, practice this crisp-and-certain method of actingfirst. Do it for one full poker session, then forget about it.

4. Thing B. Routinely raise with any moderately strong hand in late position when a middle- or late-position

player is the only one to have voluntarily entered the pot. This helps your aggressive image andmaximizes your positional advantage. Of course, you won't end up doing this all the time once you havethe game mastered - just now while you're practicing. Do it every chance you get for one full pokersession, then forget about it.

5. Thing C. Study just one player (preferably across the table from you) and see how this player actsdifferently when bluffing or not, and when weak or strong. The trick to mastering tells is to focus on justone player at a time. And while you're learning, it's much easier (although not as rewarding) to observe aplayer across the table than one to your left or your right. Don't look studious. It's a mistake to letopponents know that you're scrutinizing them. If this happens, players often will act unnaturally (whichcan be good strategy sometimes, but isn't good in studying overall tells). Watch the opponent discreetly,and try to appear as if you're thinking about something else. Practice this for one full poker session, thenforget about it.

6. Thing D. Go through an entire session without ever raising - except when

last to act with a strong hand on the last betting round. Sure, this isn't the most profitable way to playpoker, but it is one of the most profitable ways to learn poker. Practice this for one full poker session,make notes about your experience after you cash out, then forget about it.

7. Thing E. Then, go through an entire poker session always raising with any borderline hand with whichyou otherwise might just call. Take notes on how the table reacted and how you fared. Repeating - dothis for an entire poker session, then forget about it. Keep your notes for both D and E - and latercompare.

8. Thing F (Final). Whenever you're not in a hand, watch the action. Then when you see who won theshowdown, reconstruct the action from that player's point of view and visualize how that player arrived atthe showdown. Nothing will help you understand what hands opponents actually play more than this.What this lesson teaches you is that you shouldn't always expect opponents to make logical decisions.Strategies based on the assumption that your opponents are quite rational can be very costly. So,practice reconstructing the action sequences for the winning hands. Do it for an entire poker session.

When you're done, think back over all of these missions and try to incorporate them in your future play.You'll be glad you did.

38th Lecture - When Good Poker Advice Is Bad

When Good Poker Advice Is Bad The following lecture was the 38th Tuesday Session, held June 29, 1999, and later appeared in Card Player magazine.

Classroom Lectures: Some Powerful Poker Tactics Are Sometimes Wrong

I hate giving bad advice, but I give it all the time. Wait! Don't go away. I don't mean that the concepts and tactics Iteach are wrong. I mean that, despite my really, really good intentions, players may actually lose money followingwhat I say. That's because much of my advice works in general, but there are specific times when it's just plaincostly. I want to talk about that today.

The following is taken from the 38th in my series of Tuesday Session classroom lectures at Mike Caro Universityof Poker, Gaming, and Life Strategy. This lecture was held on June 29, 1999. The title of the lecture was ...

When Good Poker Advice is Bad

1. In poker, you need to adapt. Whether advice is good or bad for a particular poker situation depends on (1) youropponents, (2) your image, and (3) your bankroll. Some proven plays may not be good ones against certainopponents. For instance, I advocate making many "value bets" at high risk when you're only a slight money

favorite. When you do this, you're pressing your advantage to extract every possible penny of profit. Weakerplayers will not always press their advantages, and - worse - they will act aggressively with some hands that don't



warrant a bet or a raise. That costs them money. But if you do know that a value bet is profitable (and it isn't reallya value bet otherwise), I believe that you should bet. OK, but beware. If your image is not correctly suspicious,you're not going to get many calls, and you often shouldn't bet medium-strong hands for value. And if yourbankroll is too limited, you should forego some aggressive plays targeted at small profit but involving great risk.That way, you'll hang on to your bankroll and can use those funds to make more money when you have biggeredges. In poker, you need the right tool for right now. A hammer may be a good tool for driving a nail into ashingle, but it's not right for driving a meat thermometer into a roasting turkey. Today we'll look at some of the

good advice from the previous 37 weeks, and explain when it's bad.

2. Betting second pair on the flop. I advise that often you can do this profitably in hold'em if (1) your foes aretimid, (2) you have a big kicker, or (3) the top rank is small (all previously explained in other lectures). But don'tbet second-high board pair if your opponents look uninterested. If they're acting, this monumental tell means thatthey're waiting to pounce. And even if they're not acting, you have little motive to bet. So, bet second pair often,yes. Don't bet it against opponents who don't seem to be paying attention.

3. Bet weak hands. On the last betting rounds, bet hopeless or nearly hopeless hands into opponents whosehands are apt to be equally bad. You'll often win with that bet and avoid losing to slightly better hands inshowdowns. This concept suggests that whenever you're reasonably sure that neither you nor your opponent hasa very strong hand, you'll make more profit in the long run by betting than by checking and risking a showdown.But, consider your opponent. Don't bet your weakest hands if you might be REbluffed. You won't be able to call,assuming that your opponent doesn't conspicuously overuse this tactic. So, try this play only against opponentswith seemingly weak hands who are not aggressive or imaginative.

4. Be fun. If opponents enjoy playing with you, they'll usually give you more of their money. But sometimes youcan build an image that's too carefree - and then your opponents may become inspired and play tighter andbetter, hoping that you'll be their salvation. I've seen this happen many times. Opponents are losing and playingbadly. You try to encourage them to continue by playing a few hands even worse. Usually this works, but beware.If you're against opponents who do know how to play a strong conservative game, you might have just inspiredthem to come back to their senses - thinking that they can get even from you now. Remember, the object of awild image is to get opponents to play loosely and carelessly, not tightly and selectively.

5. Tournament advertising. In a poker tournament, advertise before the limits increase. This gives youpsychological value at a reduced price. But sometimes, advertising isn't right at all in a tournament. If theincreasing limits are going to cause your opponents to be bluffable in the next higher-limit round, you often should

take advantage of that by maintaining a solid image now. Also, you need to have a full table when you bluff;otherwise, you're paying for advertising that probably isn't reaching a wide enough audience. And make sure thatyour table isn't going to be the next one to break before you advertise. Otherwise, all of the people you've "set up"will be scattered around the tournament arena, and you'll get little or no value for your advertising.

6. Benefits of a wild image. A wild and reckless image not only profits from more calls, it tends to discouragebluffs through intimidation. Players don't like to bluff opponents who seem not to care about money. Butsometimes, a fun-loving opponent will get caught up in your routine and will bluff a lot - just for fun. In this case,your image has enticed more bluffs from that opponent - and you should call more.

7. Playing against blind bets. You should tend to attack the blinds less when the players defending them areaggressive and unpredictable. "Tight and passive" are the best blinds to attack, for many reasons previouslyexplained in my lectures. But, you sometimes should send a warning to aggressive and unpredictable foes onyour left by raiding their blinds from late positions. Remember, these players to your left have a positional

advantage over you on most hands, and you may diminish their will to maximize their positional advantage onother hands when they're not the blinds. So, although the advice to be less aggressive in attacking blinds ofopponents who defend them is valid, there's also a time when you might want to attack those blinds, simply tomake those opponents less aggressive in the future. Strange game, poker.-MC

40th Lecture - The Secrets To Reraising In Poker

The Secrets To Reraising In Poker The following lecture was the 40th Tuesday Session, held July 13, 1999,and later appeared in Card Player magazine.

Classroom Lectures: Raise 'Em Back One More Time! Is It Profitable Or Expensive?

I really enjoy raising - but I enjoy reraising even more. But the reason for every poker decision should be profit,



not enjoyment. If you want to enjoy something, enjoy thinking about the money that you won while you drivehome. Reraising can be very profitable if you do it at the right times for the right reasons. But if you do it just bywhim, it can be very expensive. So, let's talk about reraising.

The following is taken from the 40th in my series of Tuesday Session classroom lectures at Mike Caro Universityof Poker, Gaming, and Life Strategy. The lecture was held on July 13, 1999. The title of the lecture was ...

The Secrets to Reraising in Poker

1. The reraise is one of the most misunderstood strategies in poker. Hardly anyone reraises correctly, and thisincludes some top professional players. There are many average players who would make more money if theynever reraised. That's because when they choose to reraise, they often are doing it at whim and simply arecosting themselves money.

There is an old poker adage that your hand needs to have a 2-to-1 favorable likelihood of being better than youropponent's hand to justify a bet, a raise, or a reraise. The thinking is that the extra amount that you bet above theminimum will cost you double if your opponent has you beat. But this logic is flawed for many reasons, includingthe fact that your opponent might not reraise if he has the better hand (for the same reasons that you wouldn'tunless you had a big enough edge), that he might raise with a losing hand that he thinks is the better hand, andthat he might be bluffing.

In general, I believe that a 3-to-2 edge is a good all-around target advantage that could justify a reraise -sometimes greater, sometimes less. But just because you could justify that reraise doesn't mean that you shouldalways do it. It is a complicated decision, whether or not to reraise. Today we'll look at a few of the elements thathelp us decide.

2. Who's behind you. When you want players waiting to act behind you to fold, you don't even need a 3-to-2advantage over the raiser to justify a reraise. Sometimes, you can raise as the underdog! But if you don't wantplayers behind you to fold (usually because you have a very strong hand that will make more money if they call),you often should just call, even with more than that 2-to-1 likelihood of having a hand better than the raiser.

3. The big secret about reraising. (A) If you have a hand that is big enough to justify a reraise, usually just call ifplayers waiting to act behind you are loose. There usually is no advantage to chasing them out when you have a

big hand. (B) But you usually should reraise with big hands if the waiting players are tight, because you aren't aslikely to lure them in, and if they do come in, it may be with hands big enough to cut into your profit expectation.So, in most cases, you should reraise when players acting behind you are tight.

That's so important that I'm going to explain it one more time. If you are considering raising or reraising and thereare other players involved, consider the nature of the players who will have to call an extra bet if you raise. Whenyou have a very strong hand and your decision otherwise would be borderline, usually just call with loose playerswaiting to act; and usually reraise (or raise) with tight players waiting to act. Following that simple advice will adda lot to your bankroll over the years.

4. How your position affects reraising. (A) Seldom just call in an early seat hoping to reraise. That strategy oftenfails because you'll have poor position on future betting rounds. It also is almost an "act of war," like a sandbag,which should be used sparingly against weak opponents, because you want them to have fun giving you theirmoney, not feel hostile toward you. (B) Almost all of your reraising should come from last (or late) position, or in

an effort to gain last position. (C) Before the final betting round, you often should cap the betting in last position,even with hands that are slight underdogs. This helps your image and often manipulates players into checking toyou on the next round.

Let's talk a little more about (C). The cap is your friend. It's much easier to raise when you're capping, becausenobody can reraise. You don't have to think about what we talked about earlier - whether your edge should be 2-to-1 or 3-to-2. You just need to swing out there and reraise with any kind of advantage, or for speculation, or toestablish an image, or just on raw courage. Your opponents don't know that your hand wasn't strong enough tokeep raising beyond that. They don't know that you wouldn't have reraised if it weren't for the cap. This worksespecially well if you're in the last position with betting rounds to come. You often can get everyone to check toyou on the next round and decide what to do then.

5. When not to reraise. (A) Against bluffers (you often can make more if you let them bluff). (B) From early

positions (because positional advantage often is what makes reraising worthwhile). (C) With very strong handsand loose players waiting (you want them in).



6. When to reraise. (A) When establishing an image. This helps you make yourself a force to be reckoned with,and opponents will be more timid and less apt to maximize their advantages in the future. (B) From late positions.Position then is working in your favor. (C) With strong hands and tight players waiting to act (because you havelittle to gain by inviting them in).

7. Caution. Good players can win in most poker games without ever reraising before the final round. But theymight not be able to win if they reraise too often.

41st Lecture - My Favorite Extra Advice to Add to Your Game Plan

My Favorite Extra Advice to Add to Your Game Plan The following lecture was the 41st Tuesday Session,held July 20, 1999, and later appeared in Card Player magazine.

Classroom Lectures: A Profitable Assortment Of Extras That You Can Add To Your Game Plan Right Now

Not only am I going to add more weapons to your poker arsenal today, I'm going to tell you why it's important tothink about which weapon to use in a specified order. OK, you don't know what I mean, but you will.

The following is taken from the 41st in my series of Tuesday Session classroom lectures at Mike Caro Universityof Poker, Gaming, and Life Strategy. The lecture was held on July 20, 1999. The title of the lecture was ...

My Favorite Extra Advice to Add to Your Game Plan

1. Your game plan is never complete. Even if you've learned so much that you can't find anything new to add, youcan improve your expectation of profit by simply rearranging the order of the things you consider when making adecision. That's because you have a very limited amount of time to make each poker decision. Focusing onpreselected things first, to fit the current situation, can be a meaningful exercise. In truth, there is alwayssomething new that you can add to your game plan - and the order in which you consider things is somethingnew. Before we move on, let's examine this point about the order that you consider things. It turns out that this isextremely important if you want to maximize profit. Maybe you've read several books dealing with poker strategy.Maybe you've done your own research and are playing in accordance with your own game plan. Whatever you're

doing, if you take poker seriously and are trying to win, I'm betting that you don't have enough time to consider allof the things you'd like to consider before you make a poker decision to call, raise, or fold. Am I right about this?Let's put our heads together and think about it really hard. Yep. I'm right. So, what does this mean? Well, itmeans that no matter how many things you learn about poker, you'll always profit by trying to examine eachpoker situation in accordance with a structured list of considerations. On the broadest of considerations, if youropponents have lots of tells, you always should look for those first - and focus first on the specific opponents whohave the tells. If your opponents are more mechanical and don't tend to exhibit tells, you should think more aboutwhat the cards suggest. I could fill a whole book on specific things to consider, and we've talked about many ofthem in this series. But now you have to decide what's most valuable for the game you're in right now. You haveonly a short time to make a decision, and there are literally hundreds of main elements that you can consider -some statistical, some psychological, some tactical. If you make a mental list of the things that will help you winagainst this exact group of opponents in this exact game, right now, and think about the things swiftly in theirorder of importance, you're going to make a lot more money in the long run - I promise. But what about the otherimportant things you could consider that aren't on your mental list? Don't worry. Quite often, things that aren't on

the list will make themselves obvious, even though you haven't specifically targeted them for consideration. Whenthey become important, you'll know it, and you'll act accordingly. Otherwise, you'll stick with your list.

2. The dealer's tip matters. It is customary to "toke" (tip) a dealer when you win a pot of any reasonable size.Dealers are paid only a small token wage, and most of their income is from tips. Fine. But there's a concept atwork here. Just as a rake comes directly from the winner of the pot and should be considered when decidingwhich hands to play, so should the dealer's tip. If you're planning to tip the dealer, there probably are somemarginal starting hands that you should not play for that reason alone. An opponent of equal skill who is notplanning to tip can enter slightly more pots for profit than you can. This, of course, shouldn't cause you to tip lessoften when you win a pot. It should just cause you to be slightly more selective about your starting hands, whichis good practice anyway.

3. Noisy breathing. One of the most powerful tells in poker is noisy breathing. Listen for it. It means that the playerusually holds a strong hand. Players who are bluffing generally try to control their breathing or don't breathe at all.

Players who are weak do not breathe especially audibly. Ragged or heavy breathing (unless faked) almost



always is a sure sign of a strong hand. Add that to your playbook, and fold often when you hear heavy breathing.

4. When a flush looks possible. Whether it's hold'em or seven-card stud, if a flush looks like a logical possibilityfor an opponent who checks, consider the way that he checked. Hesitation and an "unsure" check usually is anact. Very often, that player already has made a flush or another strong hand. A quick check is more dangerous.So, don't be fooled by the hesitation, and often value bet into this type of check.

5. Positioning a seven-stud card and more. Watch your seven-card stud opponents position new cards when theyreceive them. A card positioned neatly or lovingly is apt to convey weakness. The player is acting and trying tomake you think that he likes the card. A card ignored and not touched, or positioned haphazardly, is apt to meanimprovement. Add this to your game plan and act accordingly. Also, watch how a seven-card stud opponent actswhen someone else (you or another opponent) is dealt a pair on board. A show of disgust is either strength (anact), or genuine and he will fold. It's OK to bluff if you have a very weak hand, but tend not to bet for valuebecause the threat of a raise is too great.

6. Two questions to practice. Try asking these two questions before you act: (1) What do I think my opponenthas? (2) What does my opponent think I have? If you practice this exercise for very long, you will learn a greatdeal. I can't tell you how monumentally important this exercise is. All professional poker players will acknowledgethe importance of doing this, but often they don't bother to do it. Hand after hand - so many hands - andeverything blends and blurs, and you find yourself playing by approximating how a hand "feels" rather than

actually asking the questions. But those questions, especially, "What does my opponent think I have?" oftenmake your choices so clear and so profitable, you'll wonder why you never asked them before.

7. Weird statistics. This is a bonus with no practical application. Just to make yourself feel superior as a player,memorize this: There are exactly 10 times as many combinations of outcomes for a hold'em starting hand asthere are for a seven-card stud starting hand: 2,118,760 vs. 211,876.

8. A powerful rule to follow in hold'em. On the river, you almost never should raise with any two pair if anyoneelse remains to act. The general category of this mistake is making aggressive value raises with medium-stronghands when others remain to act. You're almost always better off calling than raising. If typical players behindyour medium-strong hand have you beat, you'll almost never chase them out with a raise. If they don't have youbeat, you're likely to lose a liberal overcall and the bettor might not call at all. And you might not have the originalbettor beat. Your raise might even run into a reraise. For all of these reasons, and more, this type of raise is notas profitable as a call. There are very few situations in which it's correct to raise on the final hold'em betting round

with any two pair, in any situations, when other opponents remain to act after you. If you stop making this verycommon error, you'll be glad. Add that advice to your game plan and you'll add to your bankroll.

42nd Lecture - What To Do When You're Losing

What to Do When You're Losing The following lecture was the 42nd Tuesday Session, held August 3, 1999,and later appeared in Card Player magazine.

Classroom Lectures: You'll Never Be a World-Class Poker PlayerUnless You Can Handle Your Losses

Most poker players lose a whole lot more money than they should when thingsgo bad. They complain about misfortune, but a lot of it is self-inflicted. You've got to expect things to go bad fromtime to time in poker. If you learn how to cope with these inevitable losses, you'll have a lot more money to spendoverall. The sad thing is that hardly anyone handles poker losses correctly. Today we'll talk about that.

The following is taken from the 42nd in my series of Tuesday Session classroom lectures at Mike Caro Universityof Poker, Gaming, and Life Strategy. The lecture was held on Aug. 3, 1999. The title of the lecture was ....

What to Do When You're Losing

1. When things go well. It's easy to keep your integrity when you have money. People who can afford to keeptheir word about paying back debts usually do. But the real test is when you can't easily afford to repay a debt.

That's when character and integrity come into play. Well, a similar concept applies to whether you're winning orlosing. It's much easier to stick to your game plan when the cards are running your way. Your true test as a playeris how you handle losing. This is precisely when many otherwise skillful players fail the test and damage their



bankrolls - or even go broke. Repeating, the main reason skillful players go broke is that they don't know what todo when they're losing.

2. Don't forget poker's most important secret. The secret is simply, "Play your best game all the time." It's a secretthat's easy to acknowledge, but hard for players to follow, especially when they're losing. I believe that playingyour best game all the time is so important that years ago, I created a whole audio cassette tape to drive the pointhome. Of course, it seems almost silly to make a big deal out of playing your best game. What kind of a secret isthat? Everybody understands it already. Sure, but not everybody does it. In fact, almost nobody does it. That'swhat makes it important.

3. Two types of dangerous losses. There are two types of losses that put otherwise skillful poker players seriouslyoff course: (1) losing sessions, and (2) losing streaks. Losing sessions make some players lose their will to playtheir best game hand after hand. Frustration takes over. Before long, they're playing as poorly as the opponentsthey came to conquer - and sometimes more poorly. It's sad, and it happens all the t ime. But, from now on, I wantyou to play as perfectly as you can, every hand, every decision. It's those decisions that matter. As I've taught foralmost 30 years, your lifetime profit will be the sum of your good decisions minus the sum of your bad decisions,and that truth doesn't change whether those decisions are made while you're in the middle of a winning sessionor in the middle of a losing session. Perhaps more damaging are losing streaks. Every poker player experiencesthem. Losses after losses, day after day - I know the feeling. It's as though you expect things to go bad. One ofthe most destructive things players do during a losing streak is panic. They play worse because they need to win,but that's the wrong attitude. You don't need to think about winning. You need to think only about making gooddecisions, hand after hand, session after session. The wins will come when they're ready to come. Winning isn'tyour job. Making good decisions is your job. Winning is the eventual result of making good decisions consistently.

4. Let's not even think of it as a session. You can let a losing session destroy you if you think about it as asession to be won or lost. Whether you win or lose during a session, though, really has no bearing on yourlifetime profit. A session is just something with an artificial beginning and ending. If you didn't know what theywere, you'd simply weigh your bankroll once in a while to see how you were doing. Sessions don't really enterinto the equation, so why even think about them as wins or losses? And remember during any "session" to becareful when you pass "Caro's Threshold of Misery." That's when you've lost so much that any additional damagedoesn't feel any worse. But you can encounter this dangerous condition only if you think in terms of sessions. So,don't. The best psychological way to handle losses is to begin every hand fresh. You're neither ahead nor behind.You are where you are when the next deal begins. Your good decisions will give you the best chance of risingfrom that point. But if you lose that hand, forget it. It's on to the next one. Again, you're neither winning nor losing.You're starting fresh. You are where you are - again and again.

5. Don't think of it as a streak. Streaks - winning or losing - are always something seen in the rear-view mirror.There is never anything in the cards that will dictate that the streak either will or won't continue. So, you're alwaysstarting fresh. Just as every hand is a new start, every session is a new start. Never give a streak the importanceof something that has influence over your future.

6. Strategic adjustments when you're losing. Here are things you should do when you're losing, not becausethere's any force causing the cards to be bad, but because your image is damaged and your opponents tend toplay better: (1) Be more selective about your starting hands. (2) Don't bluff (at least not very often). (3) Don't raiseas often. (4) Don't bet "for value" with the hands that you normally would.

7. Psychological tricks when losing. Try these: (1) Remind yourself that you are exactly even right now. (2)Remember that even though what you do now doesn't seem to matter, there will come a time when it will matter.

Things you might try during a losing streak: (A) Take a small win and go home. (B) Play in a smaller game. (C)Look for reasons why you're losing. If you find reasons, adjust. But if you don't find any, stick to your game planand keep the faith.

43rd Lecture - Favorite Advice From Our Earliest Sessions

Favorite Advice From Our Earliest Sessions

The following lecture was the 43rd Tuesday Session, held August 10, 1999,and later appeared in Card Player magazine.

Classroom Lectures: Profitable Poker Insights From The Very First



Tuesday Lectures At MCU

Today we will conclude our classroom lectures that I originally presented live at Mike Caro University of Poker,Gaming, and Life Strategy at Hollywood Park Casino. In the next issue, we'll move on to new territory within thepoker frontier. If you've followed this series from the beginning, you might have noticed that I skipped some of theearliest sessions. That's because I hadn't yet transferred them from a computer at my Hollywood Park office tothe home computer where I usually create this column. I still haven't done that, but I'm working on a secretmethod to discipline my life and conduct myself normally like everyone else. That method could be activated anyyear, at any time. I'll let you know. Meanwhile, I thought the very last lecture in the Tuesday Session series wouldbe a good way to close this classroom experiment. It was about some of my favorite advice from the earliestsessions. Some will be new to you and some will re-emphasize some important concepts you've already readearlier. When I finally send the four or so missing sessions to my home computer, I'll write columns about them,too. So, eventually, we'll each have a complete set.

The following is taken from the 43rd and final lecture in my series of Tuesday Sessions at MCU. The lecture washeld on Aug. 10, 1999. The title was ...

Favorite Advice From Our Earliest Sessions

1. If you scrutinize opponents, you can make them put on "acts" - and they'll become easier to read. If your

opponents don't think you're paying attention, they're much less likely to go to the trouble of acting in a waydesigned to deceive you (and, unintentionally, in a way that makes them easier to read). But the more youropponents believe they are being watched, the more likely they are to act deceptively in an effort to deceive you.So, just making opponents aware that you are watching them closely sometimes can help generate tells.Remember, when they act weak, they're apt to be strong; when they act strong, they're apt to be weak.Conversely, there are some nonacting tells that you are more likely to spot if opponents don't think you'rewatching - quick, secretive glances at their chips in preparation for a bet, for instance.

2. When you see a tell, don't react right away. If you react without hesitation - or, worse, if you brag aboutdeciphering the tell - you might prompt your opponent to make a correction. But if you hesitate briefly before youfold or call in reaction to the tell and act as if you're uncertain, you'll probably be able to profit from that same tellagain in the future. This is one of the things that is hardest to teach, because players naturally have pride in theirpoker skills. But sometimes it's a profitable poker skill in itself to not make others aware of what you know aboutthem.

3. Pay attention to the tail end of a bet. Subtle extra emphasis or force means the opponent is apt to be bolsteringhimself to convince you that his hand is strong. It's probably weak, so tend to call. This extra emphasis is verydifficult to spot at first, but becomes easier and easier with practice. One of the "missions" I sometimesrecommend to students is to spend an entire session just watching the tail ends of bets. If there is a little extraflare, the chances are greater than usual that the hand is weak - or that you're watching a bluff in action.

4. Watch for wiggles. On a final-round bet, if you act as if you're about to call and your opponent freezes, thisusually means you're facing a weak hand or a bluff. If his wiggling continues, you're usually facing a strong handand the bettor isn't concerned about a call. This is a powerful category of tell that you should pay special attentionto if you want to extract the most money from your opponents.

5. How can you handle a bully? It's not uncommon to find players who through their demeanor and actions try to

"bull" the game. Your best strategy isn't to retaliate. It's simply to call more often, but to otherwise play rationally.There is no meaningful defense for this tactic.

6. What to do against a bet when you're in the middle on the last betting round. You usually should just call withmost hands that seem strong enough to raise. Save your raises for your very strongest hands. Research hasshown that you'll make more money just calling with powerful, but not cinch, hands. The exception is when youthink there's a strong chance that the bettor is bluffing and you have a good chance of driving out a potentialwinning caller who is waiting to act. So, the secret on the final betting round is, don't raise in the middle fromstrength, seeking extra calls, unless you have overwhelming strength. If you raise with lesser-quality hands, makesure that you have some other motive in mind.

7. Strange, but true: One professional can play twice as many hands as another forever and both can earn thesame amount of money! That's because the bulk of "playable" hands are marginal. Tight players can avoid themalmost entirely and loose players can play a few too many. These two types of not-quite-perfect pros may make

identical profit with vastly different styles. Of course, the player who errs on the liberal side - without thepsychological skills to take advantage of the effect that loose play has on opponents - usually will suffer much



bigger up-and-down bankroll swings than the player who errs on the conservative side. That means more risk forthe same amount of money. But if you know how to use a loose image to manipulate opponents, you can makethem give you extra money with their submarginal hands. Still, the concept that one winning player can entertwice as many pots as another winning player is an important one. They both can earn the same in the long run.

8. If you're averaging a big profit on your calls ... you're probably not calling enough. Unless you're making all thatprofit on tells or by calling foes who bluff too much, you would like to see yourself break about even by calling onthe river - on a per-call average. You easily could be the world champion of "profit per call" by calling only whenyou're absolutely sure you'll win. But then you'd lose money on all of the other calls you didn't make - all of thetimes you didn't defend against a bet because you weren't positive of victory. Remember, in limit poker games,you need to win only once in a while to break even by calling on the last betting round. If the pot is $100 large andit costs $10 to call your only opponent, you need to win only one out of 11 times to break even. If you wait untilyou're the favorite to win, your average call will seem to be worth a lot, but you'll actually be losing money overall.

9. When to bet "second pair" on the flop in hold'em. Tend to do it (1) into timid foes, (2) when you have a bigkicker, and (3) when the top rank is small.

10. Overcalling on the river. You need a substantially stronger hand than you would need to make the first call. Ifyou think that you have just as good a chance of winning as the opponent who made the first call, that often isn'tenough! Again, assume that the pot is $100 large and it costs $10 to call. Against a single opponent, you should

call if you'll win at least one time in 11. But if another opponent calls first, the pot now is $110. It still costs $10 tocall, so now you need to win only once in 12 times. But this is much harder to do, because if you beat the originalbettor, you still have to beat the first caller. And you'll beat the first caller only about half the time. That means thatto justify an overcall, you need a hand that has almost twice as good a chance of beating the bettor as you wouldif you were the only opponent. In general, even professionals seem to ignore this concept and overcall toofrequently in many situations. There are other theoretical factors that we should consider (such as how everythingwe've just discussed influences the first caller's strategy), but we'll leave it the way that it is for the sake ofsimplicity.

11. On the river, you often can bet weak hands into other hands that seem weak. Don't wait for the showdown.You often will win a whole pot that you might win only half the time by checking to find out who's weakest in ashowdown. And you might have the best hand and lose the whole pot i f you check and your opponent bluffs.

12. The less often an opponent calls ... the more you should bluff and the less you should bet medium hands. I

see many otherwise skillful players damage their bankrolls day after day by betting marginal hands aggressivelyinto tight opponents. These are the people you should bluff, not the ones you should value bet.

13. The looser your image ... the more easily you can fold strong hands! Most opponents bluff you less oftenwhen you're loose or wild.

14. Against deceptive opponents ... seldom raise with marginally strong hands. Violation of this rule also is amongthe main reasons that strong players damage their bankrolls. Value bets work best against opponents who calltoo often but don't maximize their profit by raising with medium-strong hands. If you choose just loose and timidfoes as targets of your value bets, you'll do fine. Make it your policy.

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