The obvious question with chasing poker bonuses is a simple one: is it worth it? I’m pretty convinced the answer is a resounding yes, but I’ll play fair and lay out some pros and cons.

If you’re just starting out on your poker quest, building a bankroll and experience, I think poker bonuses are invaluable. They insulate you from the nasty effects of variance and give you nice short-term goals to shoot for. They also teach you to manage your bankroll well, as far as maximizing the value of signup bonuses that require a certain amount to take full advantage of. They’re also easy, free money, which can help you build a bankroll more quickly to get you to higher limits that you might be shooting for.

As far as negatives, the biggest is that you’ll have to make peace with playing on sites you don’t necessarily like, as far as the interface. We all have our own little peculiarities and preferences, liking the software on one site but hating the interface on another. If you’re going to chase bonuses you simply have to let that go. You’ll also have to deal with the occasional slow cashouts from poker sites, although that’s fairly rare these days and usually never takes more than 48 hours for most sites.

One crucial skill is the ability to multi-table. And the more tables you can handle, the better. Bonuses get more valuable with each table you can successfully play, as each additional table dramatically increases the rate you clear the bonus at, allowing you to collect more bonuses on other sites, etc. If anything, I think the need to multi-table is a positive factor, as I’m a pretty firm believer in multi-tabling being a necessary +EV skill to possess overall.

Some people prefer to start chasing poker bonuses with a separate bankroll, so that they can more accurately track the progress and overall profit. I think that’s a fine idea and it’s pretty easy to do.

While available bonuses are always in a constant state of flux, it’s pretty safe to say that they’re not going to disappear anytime soon. It’s pretty easy to always play with a bonus overlay if you’re willing to hop from site to site to site. There are a decent number of recurring monthly bonuses, too, which can easily add $200-$300 to your bankroll, each and every month.

Assuming you play ten hours of poker a week (and multi-table at least two tables when you play), it’s not unreasonable to expect to pull down $500-$600 per month, in just bonus money. That’s not bad money at all, even if you don’t make a penny from your own play and only bank the bonus money.

More important than the money, though, is the necessary experience you’re getting. You’d normally have to pay for that, in a world in which there were no bonuses, which would make the learning curve that much steeper. That’s the real value of chasing bonuses, I think, especially early in your poker career. They provide you with padding (both financial and psychological) that keeps you in the game, plugging away, until the lightbulbs start going off and you suddenly are a profitable player, all on your own.

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Rebuy tournaments are my favorite types of tournaments to play. I am not much of a gambler away from online poker; I rarely play table games like roulette or let them ride, and I never bet on sportsbooks. My tournament style, and overall poker style for that matter, is generally tight-aggressive, but during rebuy tournaments, I use a different strategy that is funny to play and has given me a great deal of success in the past years.

That said, there are some things you should consider when you play a rebuy online poker tournament. The first thing to keep in mind is that you have to budget a lot more money for the tournament than just the initial buy-in. I budget for the initial buy-in, two re-buys, and the add on. So, if I am playing a $10 re-buy event, I will show up with $40. This gives me the opportunity to play the event correctly.

In a rebuy tournament, you can present your opponents with an image that you will later exploit in the online poker tournament. Early on, I will often make unorthodox moves, pushing chips and building a maniac-aggressive image. Then, when the rebuy and I tend to get paid off on all my big hands. The key to creating this image and opportunity, however, lies in budgeting enough money and a willingness to take risks. If you are not willing to invest enough money to make some rebuys and for the add on, then you should reconsider playing the event. You may catch cards and win a lot of pots and therefore never need to make a re-buy, but if you don’t at least have that opportunity, than you are at a disadvantage.

There is one of mine important factor in a rebuy tournament that you will have no control over, and that is your table draw. Before the start of a rebuy tournament, tournament directors will post the breakdown schedule for that tournament. This lists the order in which the tables will be broken down as players are knocked out of the tournament. A good table draw has you sitting at a late break table. A bad table draw breaks early. I am always willing to invest more re-buys in a tournament when I am seated at a late break table simply because if I lose those chips, I will have a lot of time to win them back after the re-buy period ends. If my table is scheduled to break early and I donate a lot of chips to those players, I will not have the opportunity to exploit my newfound loose image to win them back.

When it comes time for the add-on, many players question whether or not they should take it. I suggest always taking the add on unless your chip stack is in the top 18% of chip stacks after accounting for the other players taking their addons. This will help make sure you do not find yourself at a disadvantage when the real play starts.

So, if you find yourself playing with me at your next rebuy tournament and you notice that I am gambling it up, be careful! When you call my all in bet after the re-buy period ends, you are likely to find yourself staring down at the business end of the stone cold nuts!

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Once you have chosen your game and table, you must select a seat where you will get the most value for your money. Poker players place their bets in a clockwise direction. It is worthwhile to identify the big Bankroll players and to sit at the position to their left. By doing so all the betting and raising will be done by the time the action reaches you.

The importance of position can not be stressed enough. Even the same cards dealt in the same order may produce vastly different results depending on where you’re sitting. Playable Hands and winning combinations in late positions will often be unplayable in earlier positions.

If you are first, second or third to play after the dealer button you are in what’s called the “early” position (also known as “up front”). If you are the dealer button (also known as “playing the button”) or one or two seats to the right of the dealer button you are in what’s called the “late” position. All players in-between (and normally facing the dealer across the table) are in the “middle” position.

If you are in the “early” position, the types of hands you must try to play are restricted to high cards or good hands, since you have no way of knowing what the other players in the group are holding.

If you are playing the “middle” position, you’ll have players waiting behind you and others that have already played. The chance of a raise is slightly less in this position and there are already several players in the pot so you will get better odds playing weaker hands.

The advantage of being in the “late” position is that you get a chance to see almost every play so far, and will be able to read how other players feel about their hands by the way they have checked, bet, raised or re-raised.

It is a great advantage to be in the “playing the button” position, since you are last to act in each betting round of that hand. Like the “late” positions, you can play a much weaker hand than normal and can use bluffing more often to your advantage, particularly as the game advances.

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on a draw because of the fact you can’t rebuy. If this overlay is very high tho, there comes a point in (almost) every tournament situation where you can no longer turn it down. In that hand Doyle bet 17,000 into Stu Ungar. Stu called hoping to hit a gutshot, and did, and busted Doyle. Later, Doyle admitted he should have bet more.

I don’t like your call with the gutshot. I don’t think you had the implied odds to even come close to making that call worthwhile. He was betting nearly 20% of your remaining stack, and you called on an 11-1 shot.

The more general question tho… How much implied odds do you need to call in a tournament with a draw?

I think you need more implied odds to call a tournament bet than you would need in a ring game to call in the exact same situation. For instance…

Say you have KQs and the flop is AT4r with one diamond. There’s $20 in the pot and your opponent, whom you are sure needs to have an ace or better to bet, bets $5. Clearly you don’t have the pot odds to call, but do you have the implied odds? With 20 in the pot, you need to get another $35 off him to break even, more than that to make a profit. Say his stack is $50. Well, in a ring game, if you think you can break him, you might call. But say your stack is $50 and this is a tournament, and the BB is $5, and will soon go up to $10. Here, you’re risking 10% of your stack on a longshot. I personally don’t do this in tournaments. Draws basically are not as worthwhile in tournaments because of the inability to rebuy chips if you lose. Obviously, the more of a longshot, the less you should be inclined to try, even with implied odds. The exception would be of course if the blinds / bet were very small compared to your stack.

To simplify more, say you were getting 12:1 on an 11:1 shot. In a ring game, you take it, simple as that. In a tournament, you might want to give up a small overlay.

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Playing fourth steet in Limit Seven-Card Stud. For this tip, I’m going and show how you might improve your play on seventh street.

My first suggestion for playing on seventh street is that you need to look at your pot odds when facing a final bet. When playing $5-$10 Stud, for example, you’ll often need to call a $10 river bet while looking at a pot of $70. In this spot, where you’re getting 7:1, if you have any suspicion that your hand is good, you really ought to call. The odds are so favorable that throwing away a lot of marginal hands would be a mistake. This is very different from no-limit poker, where you’ll need to make some big laydowns late in a hand. If you’re making the transition from No-Limit Hold ‘em to Limit Stud, keep this very important point in mind.

Some of the tougher decisions on seventh street arise when you’re holding one pair. Let’s say you start with a pair of 6s and your opponent open-raises with a King as his door card. He bet all the way, representing a pair of Kings, and you called. Neither of you seemed to improve on fourth, fifth or sixth streets, and he bet out on the river.

At this point, you can be fairly certain that he doesn’t have a pair of Kings. Most people don’t have the heart to bet one pair on the river. So, in this case, you’re likely up against something like Kings up, some sort of hidden hand, or a total bluff. Given this range of hands – and knowing that a bluff is a possibility – you should make the final call. You’ll pick off a bluff enough of the time to make the call profitable.

I want to point out here that, since it’s proper to call with a lot of marginal hands, betting with one solid pair on the river is often a good idea. If you start with something like a pair of Kings and your opponent doesn’t seem to catch anything, don’t be timid on the river. Oftentimes, you should bet, knowing that a lesser hand is likely to call.

Now, let’s look at another river situation. Let’s say that after the river has been dealt, you have Q 10 9 8 with three clubs showing. You made a straight on the river after your opponent has been aggressively betting his hand the entire way, showing Ad Kd 9s 6h.

After betting into your hand on sixth street, he again bets into your hand on seveth street. In this situation, you have to think about what your opponent is betting into. Most players will not bet into such a scary board with one pair or even two pair.

We have to assume that our opponent is either bluffing with a weak hand and is unconcerned with our hand, or has a huge hidden hand and is hoping to get three bets on the river. This could be a situation where you might just call, especially if there is a third hand behind you who might over-call with a marginal hand that he would fold if you had raised.

When playing Limit Stud, be sure that you’re making enough value bets and crying calls on the river. Keep the pot odds in mind and you’re likely to make the right.

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1. If your hand is not good enough to bet with then it certainly is not good enough to call a bet with
2. Following the best playing strategy you will only play around 1 in 10 hands approximately so don’t think you can play 50% of the hands dealt to you and expect to win at this game.
3. Hands like unsuited JQ, KJ, A10 will just cost you money in the long run and should seldom be played unless you are trying to steal the antes by raising and no body has called yet
4. Hands with one high card and one medium or low card are extremely week (even if they are suited) and should only be played if you want to donate money to the pot
5. Players on the internet are very hard to bluff so avoid this strategy
6. Wait for good hands and play aggressive when you hit the flop
7. If you miss the flop do not see the turn card unless the pot is very large and you have the nut straight or flush draw
8. In an aggressive game (lots of raising) you must avoid small cards and connectors unless you have late position and there are already many people in the pot
9. Do not play small pairs (under 8’s) unless there are at least 4 people already in the pot.
10. Do not raise with pocket pairs under JJ since you are really hoping for lots of players and to hit trips on the flop
11. Most money in Hold’em is earned by saving bets on weak hands (not calling a draw hand or playing weak cards before the flop). When you first start playing you will want to be in every hand but realize a hand only take one minute on the internet so you will have new cards soon so don’t play for the sake of playing
12. If a low limit game the average winning hand is usually two pairs so be careful if your hand is weaker than this
13. Most money is lost from early position play and most money is made from late position play. You need to have very strong hands in early position play to compensate for betting first each round
14. Start taking notes on players who call too many hands or who are overly aggressive with marginal hands
15. If you are new to the game play more conservative than what your initial instinct tells you to do

Early Position Play (seats 1 to 4 after dealer):

1. In early position before the flop raise with hands AA, KK, QQ, JJ, AK, and AQ

2. Do not call a raised hand with less then AQ ever

3. Just call with pocket 10’s , pocket 9’s and pocket 8’s but fold all lower pairs (even for one bet)

4. Call a single bet (no raise) with AJ, KQ suited, and A10 suited

5. All other cards are almost always unplayable even for one bet from early position

6. You can raise with pocket JJ’s or higher since that is a strong enough hand that it may win without trips

Middle Position Play (seat 5 to 8 after dealer):

1. Call and raise with same hands you would in early position and you can now call with a few more
   
2. Call a single bet with hands 77, 88, 99, KQ, KJ suited, JQ suited, JT suited and nothing worse than this
   
3. Do not call two bets (a raise) unless you have one of the top 5 premium hands (AA, KK, QQ, JJ, AK) and then consider re-raising to drive other players out
   
4. Do not play hands like 9,10 or 8,9 or 7,8 etc…in middle position
   
5. Hands such as ACE + any card of same suited are best left for late position calls with no raise

Late Position Play (seats 9 to 10 where seat 10 is the dealer):

1. Call or raise with any hands you would in early and middle position and now you can play even more hands
   
2. In late position call a single bet with draw hands such as 5,6 s, 7,8s, and 9,8s ONLY if there are 5 or more people already in the pot (3 callers including blinds would mean 5 callers)
   
3. Call a single bet with any pocket pairs. Low pairs are very weak hands unless you hit trips on the flop so you are hoping for lots of players and to get in cheap
   
4. In late position raise with AA, KK, QQ, JJ, AK and AQ. Re-raise a raiser (making it 3 bets) with AA, KK, QQ
   
5. If there are no other callers and its your turn to act you can raise with weaker cards such as KJ, QT, and AXs

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You’ve probably heard the standard reason to avoid slow playing: It’s dangerous, because when you slow play, you give an opponent a chance to make a bigger hand at a minimal cost. This is absolutely true. But there’s another reason to play your big hands fast, and this one isn’t talked about as frequently. A slow play can give an opponent a chance to get away from a hand more cheaply than he would have had you played it fast from the start. Consider the following example.

You’re in late position in a No-Limit Hold ‘em ring game. A player raises in early position. You look at your cards, see pocket 8s, and decide to call. The flop is absolutely perfect: Qh 8h 2d. You’ve hit your set and, with the Queen out there, chances are your opponent has something – maybe A-Q, maybe pocket Kings or Aces. He bets the flop.

Many players will just call in this spot, hoping to get their opponent to bet on the turn. But a raise is usually the better play. If you just call, you risk seeing a heart on the turn. I don’t think you need to be especially worried about the flush beating your set. You might get your set beat by a flush draw even if you raise. However, you do need to be concerned about the effect the third heart will have on your opponent. He very well might suspect that you were on the flush draw and he’d no longer be willing to commit a lot of money to the hand, even if he has Aces.

In fact, any King, Jack, 10, 9 or a card that pairs the board is likely to give your opponent pause. If he bets on the turn and you raise, you’re signaling that the turn card helped you. In effect, you’re saying that you liked the flop enough to call and the turn improved your hand in some way. You’re announcing that you can beat one pair.

So the flop very well may be the only time when your opponent is willing to make a stand with a single pair. If he bets the flop of Qh 8h 2d and you raise, he’s likely to think that you’re semi-bluffing — raising on a flush draw. At that point, he might feel compelled to protect his hand with large re-raise or perhaps an all in. When this happens, you’ll take down a monster pot.

It’s OK when a flop raise doesn’t get you the result you want. You might scare off someone holding pocket Jacks or Ace-King, but you wouldn’t make a lot of money off these hands anyway. And, if you’re up against Ah-Jh, you may lose a big pot to a flush. But that’s OK, because you’ll have gotten your money in with the best hand.
Of course, there are some occasions where slow playing is the best choice. If you flop quads or something like Queens full, you’ll want to give an opponent a chance to make some kind of hand on the turn or river. But frequently, the best option is to play fast on the flop. It may be your only chance to win a big pot with a big hand.

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New players who want to be good students of the game often ask me for advice. In response, I often tell them about emotional stability, which I touched on in my last tip. The next point I’d like to make is that they need to be careful when assessing their own play. That’s because there are a couple of common mistakes new players make that lead them to draw faulty conclusions about the strength of their play.

After playing for a short period of time, say 100 hours, a player starts to develop an opinion about his or her play. They might think they’re playing very well or very poorly, but this conclusion might be far from the truth. The problem is that, in the short term, anything can happen. A player may get very lucky or unlucky and show results that are either far higher or lower than they could ever expect in the long-term. However, over a longer period – say 300 hours or more – a player is going to get a much more accurate view of their ability to beat the game.

So what does this mean for you? In short, I recommend that you keep an eye on your long-term results no matter if you’re in the midst of a hot streak or a cold one. While taking the long view will help you more accurately assess your play, it can’t help you avoid every pitfall along the way.

For example, assume that I’ve played the following games of No-Limit Hold ‘em and have managed the following debts and profits:

Game: $1/$2
Hours: 200
Profit/Loss: -$2,000

Game: $2/$4
Hours: 200
Profit/Loss: -$4,000

Game: $25/50
Hours: 30
Profit/Loss: +$36,000

At first glance, it looks like I’m dong pretty well, right? I’ve make a handsome profit of $30,000. Look deeper though and you’ll see that I wouldn’t want to quit my day job because, in fact, I’m doing quite poorly.

To better understand what I mean, don’t think about the actual dollar figures involved but, instead, think of each small blind as a unit. So, in a $1/$2 game, each unit is 1 and in a $25/$50 game each unit is 25.

How have I done in terms of units won and lost? I’ve lost 2,000 units in the $1/$2 game, 2,000 units in the $2/$4 game and won 1,440 units in the $25/$50 game. Total everything up and you’ll see that after 430 hours of play, I’ve lost 2,560 units. This is bad news.

As you keep records of your sessions, be sure to record the size of the game you’re playing and number of units you’ve won or lost. At the start of your poker career, put more emphasis on units won or lost than on your total profit. It’s a more accurate gauge as to whether you’re playing winning poker.

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Pocket Pairs: Pairs are always good hole cards, but you should play them wisely. Everyone loves to see a pair in the hole. One of the most anticipated pocket pairs are the pocket Aces which tend to cause amateurs to bet the whole farm thinking they cannot loose. If you do not comprehend anything else in this guide, comprehend this…pocket Aces are not ALWAYS a winner. Yes, they are indeed the best starting hand you can theoretically be dealt, but I have seen way too many players lose all of their chips with the “all-in” pocket Aces.

Having said that, let’s start with the idea of “slow playing” your pocket Aces. There are a few things that you should consider before doing so. If you choose to slow play the Aces you should be at a table that has players who are unlikely to call a pre-flop raise from an early position, very loose players, or one or more players who are frequently stealing the blinds. Keep in mind that slow playing with any hand should not become a dominating strategy but rather a technique used sparingly. Now suppose that you come out strong with your betting and you get multiple callers or even a raise. If it comes to the turn or river card and you do not improve your hand you should typically lay down. More often than not, you will lose a substantial amount of chips – especially if there is a possible straight or flush hand showing on the board. Remember, it is better to save your stack and live to play another hand than to foolishly take chances.

Other pocket pairs such as the Deuce/Deuce is not as strong as many would think at ANY point during the game. I would recommend never holding this small pair (unless you are a blind and can check through to the next card). All it takes is someone holding a single Three card and then seeing another Three show up on the flop or turn to win the hand. In general, the Five to Nine pair are usually not good pocket pairs to bet on – but can be a good hand to see the flop on if the betting is not beyond your comfort level or if you are a blind and have the option to check. If you don’t hit at least three of a kind on the flop, it is best not to hold these low pairs unless you can continue to check the hand. The best advice I can give for playing pocket pairs on the Internet is to watch which pairs have recently won, and which ones have recently lost. Keep a mental record of the ?wins? verses ?losses?. I say this for the simple fact that if King/King in the hole has won three times during the tournament, odds become favorable that they will not win the fourth time BEFORE at least one bad beat. This one observation alone can save you a lot of money – especially in large multiplayer tournaments. Many online casinos state that they use random number generators when dealing or determining cards (I?m not saying they don?t) but after countless hours of real game time, one will begin to wonder just how ?random? anything can be.

ALWAYS, ALWAYS be aware that when any pair is showing on the board, a full house is possible. A full house Threes full of Twos will beat Ace/Ace or trip Aces every time. Whenever you see someone betting hard on board pairs, you should at the very least be holding an Ace or King with the pair, and it is recommended not to play against a high wager unless you already have trips with the possibility of hitting the full boat yourself.

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Obviously there are not as many tells when playing on the internet as there are when playing in person. You cannot see the other player in order to read his/her expressions and emotions. But believe it or not, there are times when you can pick up on the playing habits of another player online. For instance: Players that frequently push the check/fold button before their turn. This is very common among NOVICE or uneducated players. This is an easy tell, they have no hand worth playing and only hope to see free cards – or fold if a raise is made.

A GOOD player will take some time off of the clock even when they have nothing. This keeps the other players guessing at all times. Sometimes it will even frustrate an experienced or frequent player causing them to make a hasty decision. If you see someone checking quickly hand after hand, play them aggressively, unless of course you know the player and they are using this as a method to fool their opponents.

Some veteran players will try to use the clock as a “timing” tool to their advantage. For example, a player may take the full ?time out? before they make their decision to check/fold/raise. If they use a large amount of time to simply check, odds are they have nothing. Slightly raise the stakes to keep them in check. If they come back with a large raise or an all-in raise ? watch out! Unless you know this player very well it is wise to be cautious and back down. Regardless of the outcome use it to your advantage by taking mental note of the player?s style and use this knowledge for the next showdown. A novice player will consistently play their hand the same way every time.

I?ll give you a good example. I once knew a player that went all-in every time he would stay in a hand. It didn?t matter if it was on the flop, the turn, or the river, if he bet ? it would be all-in. Believe it or not, he won a lot of tournaments ? until I (and eventually a few others) caught up to him by carefully observing his playing style. He would only play Ace/King, Ace/Ace, or any suited cards. Once this tell was out, it was easy to know when to stay in a pot or when to fold. My point is this: If you will carefully watch a player and take note of what cards they hold when they win AND loose, you can get a good feel of how they play and thus recognize their ?tells?.

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