el Blondie - Highlights from his articles

[Suckout King]

Bet365 - are happy for some content that they have provided to be included in this forum. Their poker content is written in an entertaining fashion by Dave "el blondie" Colclough. In this thread I will include some of what I see as the highlights of these articles for beginners. All the following threads with quote marks are the words of El blondie rather than myself.

[Suckout King]

"Written by: Dave Colclough (2004-04-12 18:59:19)

Howdy Folks,

I hope you have all been practicing hard at the Play tables at bet365poker? I'd guess you've had fun, but the stimulation isn't quite there? There are a couple of reasons for this. Firstly, you don't have any of your hard earned dough on the line. Secondly, your opponents don't have any of their hard earned dough on the line. So they just don't play the same. Have you played a hand yet where you have the Aces, raised at every opportunity, and still there are five opponents on the river? And low and behold, one of them hit a gutshot, middle pin, inside straight draw. Ouch… No. They would not have been there if you were playing with real wonga.

So if you have got the hang of the pop up buttons, how the game flows, and generally feel comfortable, it is now time to move onto the cash tables. No, not 100/200 limit, or even the 10/20 limit. The sharks will be slobbering at the thought. They haven't been educated by Finding Nemo yet, and 'fish, are not friends. They are food''.

Let's start small : $0.10/$0.20 or $0.50/$1. Fixed Limit Hold'Em is the next step. This will drastically reduce the lunatic opponents scenario. All of a sudden, only 2 or 3 opponents are calling your raises. Your opponents don't want to give their money away, and they want to take your money off you! Let's sit down with a $50. If this doesn't last you at least 20 hours playing time, don't move up. Ideally, you shouldn't move up until you are breaking even. This is probably a good rule to abide by at all levels.

Ok. I know what you are thinking : I haven't given you any clues on what sort of cards to play, what situations, or 'position', to play them, and how to play them. If only it was that easy! The answers are, it depends, it depends, and you guessed it, it depends. (I should have been a politician.) Over the weeks, I'll try and cover as many 'it depends' as possible.

Do!
› A starter for ten… 7 2 off suit is not a good hand. 9 3 is also not a good hand. Just watch me blow $15000 (real money) on Sky Sports next month for proof. I was heads up with Peter, having outlasted the other 4 opponents. I believed Peter was playing too tight for heads up play, so I decided to bully him. Wronggg. I raised his big blind once too often with 9 3, and he surprisingly called me with 10 Q. Whoops! Not a very nice scenario. Needless to say I went out, lost my money, lost the $15000 prize money, lost the opportunity to win $200,000 in the final, looked rather stupid on TV, and lost my pride. And the moral of the story is… 'Let's stick to decent starting hands'.

Dont!
› Don't call any bets with an off suit, high card, low card combination, e.g. J4, Q3, K5.

› Don't call any bets with an off suit, two low cards combination, e.g. 84, 72 and especially 93!

Try!
› Only call with suited connectors, e.g. 9h,10h if the price is right, i.e. one bet and no raises.

› Only call with low pairs, e.g. 5s if the price is right, i.e. one bet and no raises.

› Let's try and play high cards like AJ. KQ, A10. These are calling hands.

› Let's only raise with AK, AQ and the high pairs 9s and up.

Ok, this all sounds very predictable. But you will be surprised how little your opponents notice, and believe it or not, how little many of them care.

See you next week folks,

Dave

Dave 'El Blondie' Colclough is the European Poker Player of the Year. He is sponsored by bet365poker, part of the bet365 Group Limited, one of the world's leading betting and gaming groups. Dave writes a weekly column full of poker tips and his experiences playing professionally.

Put your poker playing skills to the test at bet365poker.com. "

[Suckout King]

"Written by: Dave Colclough (2004-04-23 19:14:13)

Ok Folks,

The boss has spoken. He wants more advice and less drivel in the column (what's the difference you may well ask). He just doesn't care about whether my fridge was empty at the end of January… So what if my 5 year old daughter couldn't go to the cinema to watch Peter Pan? What's wrong with a good game of noughts and crosses? Exactly. So, here's probably the minimum I can get away with on the subject of 'position'.

'Position' is just plain common sense. The further you are from the Big Blind, the more information you have. It is commonly believed that having the best position is always being in last position. In fact, my mate Brad who has an IQ of 180, insists that being last to speak is always the best position to be in. It is in fact one of the few statements he has made that is completely incorrect, wrong, short sighted simplistic rubbish…but for the time being we will assume he is right.

Let's assume that we have all been good boys and girls, and we are sticking to Fixed Limit Hold'em at bet365poker... no bigger than 50c/$1. (I know that No Limit is more fun but patience, patience, patience.) Ok. So you are first to speak after the Big Blind, commonly referred to as 'under the gun'. You are looking down at AJ. Nice hand... No, not in this position. There are 9 players who haven't acted yet. 9 hands that may contain a pair of Jacks, Queens, Kings, Aces, AK or AQ. All of which, you don't want to play against. And, should you raise from this position, all the hands that you want to play against, JK, JQ, J10, A10, A9, will probably fold to your raise. The bottom line being if continuously play AJ from here, you will lose money in the long run. Difficult to believe? but true... honest guv, I'm a poker player.

OK. So we are now sat on the button. Le position perfecte. You look down at AJ. Nice hand…well maybe… Lets say. The man under the gun raises, the next player re-raises, and the ultra tight Miss Rock of Gibraltar, I only play Aces, next to you has capped it. Do you want to play your AJ now? No, of course not. But the point is, you have found out that you don't have the best hand without putting a cent of yesterdays winnings in. If you had raised under the gun, and then had to fold, you would have wasted 2 bets, $2, half of Sian's entrance fee to watch Peter Pan.

OK. So we are now sat on the button. Le position perfecte. You look down at AJ. Nice hand... well maybe... Lets say. The man under the gun folds, everyone folds and the regular limper in with A 2 to your right, limps in. Now of course, we want to raise. The guy to your right didn't raise, so he can't have a better hand than you. And there are only 2 hands (the small and big blind) behind you. A very small chance of there being a better hand than yours… If you get really lucky, the Big Blind might fall in love with his J 9 and call as well. The flop comes down Ace high or Jack high, and they will probably bet and call your raises all the way to the river.

So the morale of this week's story is that AJ under the gun, is errr... a fold I'm afraid. Ok, well A 10 or A 9 is anyway.

Ok that's all I can cope with this week, but if you are really keen maybe we will talk about the positional advantages for bluffing at a later date, why my mate Brad is wrong, and why Brad is famous... (Yes he does exist. He is not my fictional friend. Oh, what a beautiful mind.)

See you next week folks,

Dave

Dave 'El Blondie' Colclough is the European Poker Player of the Year. He is sponsored by bet365poker, part of the bet365 Group Limited, one of the world's leading betting and gaming groups. Dave writes a weekly column full of poker tips and his experiences playing professionally.

Put your poker playing skills to the test at bet365poker.com. "

[Suckout King]

"Written by: Dave Colclough (2004-08-19 17:52:28)

Patience is the hurdle most beginners struggle with. The biggest mistake is usually playing too many hands. If they have not seen a hand for 20 minutes, all of a sudden A4 looks like a monster in any position. Don't do it. Patience is everything.

Secondly, watch ! Watch how many hands someone plays and how they play them. Make mental notes. Watch. Ask how you can take advantage of what they are doing. Watch. Ask yourself are they doing something worth copying. Watch and keep thinking about it. Most experienced players don't ! That's why you can catch up and pass them. Put the effort into the thought process and you will be rewarded.

Respect a re-raise. If you have raised with AJ, and someone has re-raised, then they probably have you well beat. Learn to swallow. Pass. (The exception to this, is in major championships. Good players will re-raise with anything in a major event. You need to know which will though, and which won't.)

When you reach a reasonable standard and start playing with better players, mix it up. When the whole table knows you are passing A4 in early position and raising AQ in late position. Try mixing it up. Raise with suited connectors occasionally. This can have several benefits. You can often steal when the flop comes high. Secondly, you often get called when you hit the flop.

Now we are majoring in contradictions, let's contradict the patience argument. Be aware of your chip stack compared to the Blinds. Don't let yourself get too low. A lot of good cash players can't win tournaments because they blind themselves to death. If you have less than 3 times the big blind, you are in trouble. Make a move before this happens. Even with A4 when needs must. "

[Suckout King]

"Written by: Dave Colclough (2004-09-01 22:14:53)

Over the next couple of weeks, I am going to introduce some probabilities, odds and suggest how to use them.

One often quoted poker statistic goes as follows...


2,2 will beat A,K 53% of the time,
but 10,Js will beat 2,2 over 50% of the time.


So 10,J is a better hand then A,K ? Of course not,


A,K is a 63% favourite against 10,J.

The above statistics are very interesting, and can certainly convince your opponents that you a complete bore, but are they of any use? How can you take advantage of this information? The easy answer is you can't. In this case, I will quite happily commit my whole stack with A,K before the flop in NLH tournaments, but would have to be under extreme pressure to do it with 2,2 or 10,J. The reasons for this are simple. If you should get called, and you have to win the hand to stay in the tournament, what might your opponent have?


If you have 2,2, then you are never going to be a big favourite against any possible hand unless it has a 2 in it. (You are very lucky if your opponent has A,2, and then you are only 1/2 favourite). If he has any two over cards, you are in some sort of coin flip. If he has an over pair, you are a 4/1 underdog.
If you have 10,J , then you are probably in almost as much trouble. You will not have been called by any hand that you are a significant favourite against. If you have been called by a big pair, or A,J, A,10, then you need a miracle. The best you can hope for, is a coin flip against a lower pair.
With A,K there are only two possible dominators : You will need a miracle against American Airlines, and you are a 2/1 dog against K,K. All the other pairs are coin flips. With this hand though, there is an upside. If you are an aggressive player, or you are playing against some loose callers, you may get called by many hands that you dominate: A,Q, A,J, A,10, K,Q.


Remember though, when moving your chip stack in with any of these three hands, the best result is that your opponents fold. Then you win 100% of the time!

See you next week!

Dave "

[Suckout King]

"Written by: Dave Colclough (2004-12-08 15:41:27)

In Brighton this week I had the pleasure of sitting on the same table as the young Richard Gryko. In my opinion, he is the best young player on the live British circuit. I don't think he is even 22 years old, but already has an intimidating table presence. Very few players put the same amount of thought into No Limit Hold'em, and it most certainly is not a pleasure playing against him. The sunglasses, his cool persona and ability to make players sweat, are not the subject of this week's article though.

During the first level of the main event the blinds were 25/50 and the starting stacks were a deep 7,500. Every pot Richard entered, he made it 125 to play. A much more experienced player asked 'what's all this 125 about?' I found this comment interesting because I believe that most players make a raise without actually knowing why they are raising, or more precisely, what they hope to achieve with their raise. In this situation Richard was 'pot building' and announcing he had a better than average hand (even if it was only suited connectors). He knows the 125 is not going to scare anyone off. Players who were going to call the 50 will probably call 125. What he was hoping though, was that when he eventually flopped a monster (possibly a made straight or flush) he would be able to find an opponent with two pair or another hand they can't put down. Hopefully because the pot is bigger, the opponent may be drawn into losing his whole stack, which is obviously better than playing for a much smaller size pot.

I am also sure he also has confidence in his ability to outplay his opponents post flop. So, if his opponent indicates weakness, Richard will go ahead and steal the pot. If the opponent has an average hand, he will not be prepared to risk a bad call in a bigger pot this early in a competition. Typical examples of this, may be raising with 8 9 of hearts and the flop showing A 7 2 off suit. An opponent may well have called with a pair of 8s, but they are unlikely to call any bet by Richard.

In this case of raising to 125, Richard is making a raise where he is 'looking for action'. Later in competitions it is very important to know whether you want action with your hand, or whether you are happy to pick up the blinds/pot as it stands. Let's say the blinds are now 1000/2000 in the later stages. You have 10,000 chips and have just been dealt J J. How much do you raise? If you make it 5,000 or 6,000 the Big Blind may call with an Ace rag type hand. The flop could easily show an Ace, King or Queen, and you could find yourself having to pass for your last 4,000 when you might be winning. So, in this case, the best move is raise to 10,000 all-in pre-flop. You may be unlucky enough to walk into Aces, Kings or Queens, but this is more than counter balanced by the fact, you may get called by smaller pairs that you dominate. However, the importance of moving all-in is that you are removing the very difficult post flop decisions that this hand poses.
Let's say we are dealt AA in this position of the tournament. We are a slightly below average stack and beginning to struggle. I don't get dealt Aces very often. When I get them, I want to double up. I'll take my chances with the best hand here. I would probably make a minimum raise here, hoping to trap one of the blinds, or even entice a re-raise. I may get unlucky and lose to two pair, but the size of my raise will be looking for trouble. Often, experienced players will move their whole stack in, scare off hands such as AQ, and then complain that they couldn't get any action.

Think about why you are raising, what you want to achieve, and use the appropriate amount of your stack.

See you next week folks,

Dave

Dave 'El Blondie' Colclough is the European Poker Player of the Year. He is sponsored by bet365poker, part of the bet365 Group Limited, one of the world's leading betting and gaming groups. Dave writes a weekly column full of poker tips and his experiences playing professionally.

Put your poker playing skills to the test at bet365poker.com. "

[unl0ad]

Ok here is the situation from last night. The game was omaha Hi.

Flop came out Ace-D, Jack-D, 3 - Spades,
4th 6-Spades
River 4 - D

2 players had a flush. One had 6,7 D's in their hand.
The other had 10,3 D's In there hand.

I said 10,3 won becuase you are playing the best flush that you have in YOUR hand and I was trying to argue this, and no one would believe me when I have played mass amounts of poker. Since I can not find this rule anywhere online. I need someone to print out to show them this rule.

please respond to this poker forum (http://www.casinomeister.com) so I can show them.

[Suckout King]

mate you need more than 7 posts in a forum to get anyone to look at it let alone there to be anyone to "show". So i have changed the dead forum that you refer to to casinomeister - a quality gambling forum where people actually have a chance of reading any response that they feel like posting out with my own forum.

Spam here again and you'll get reported and risk losing your affilate statuses with the companies with whom you work.