Poker Strategies For Advanced Players
Advanced Poker Common Advanced Mistakes Mistake #1: Missing Value Bets. Value betting is what seperates a great player from just a good player. Obviously, any person knows to bet when he or she holds the nuts. However, getting maximum value out of marginal hands is much trickier. Value betting is highly situational and game dependent. Poker Guides For Beginners & Advanced Players ♠ Poker Strategy Poker Lessons Tutorials Tips & More. Become a Smarter Poker Player! In this book he introduces the reader to the concept of 'non-self weighting strategies' and explains why successful gambling is actually a balance of luck and skill. Other books he has co-authored are Hold em Poker For Advanced Players, written with David Sklansky, and Seven-Card Stud For Advanced Players written with David Sklansky and Ray Zee.
Caribbean Stud Poker is popular because of its easy-to-understand rules, fair odds, and generous payouts. Since the game bears a striking resemblance to blackjack in that it is played against the house and not against one’s opponents makes it attractive to blackjack players too. Since the aim is to beat the dealer by creating a hand stronger than the dealer’s, the game is much more relaxing than other variants of poker such as Stud, Omaha, and Hold’em. The highlight of Caribbean Stud Poker is its progressive jackpot feature, which can be activated by placing the optional side bet of $1, considered by many as a sucker bet.
Players’ Aim
As previously mentioned, the aim of the player is to beat the house by producing a poker hand stronger than the dealer’s. At the beginning of the game, both player and dealer get 5 cards each. While players can view their cards right away, only one of the dealer’s cards is a hole card. The entire game is played with cards dealt at the beginning of the game. The rules, therefore, are easy, and players can improve their chances of winning by employing certain proven and tested strategies.
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Importance of Strategy
Contents
Implementation of strategy can help players reduce the house edge, but they should implement the strategy correctly and at the right time. Caribbean Stud Poker is one poker variant that is friendly to players with different sizes of bankrolls. Players usually follow two major types of strategies while playing Caribbean Stud Poker:
- Basic Strategy – This is a simple strategy that is easy to understand and easy to remember, allowing players to reduce the house edge by a fraction.
Advanced Caribbean Stud players must understand the basic strategy thoroughly before attempting to understand the advanced strategy.
- Advanced Strategy – This strategy is slightly complex, but it definitely reduces the house edge by a considerable percentage.
Basic Strategy
The basic strategy includes 3 simple points:
- Avoid folding small pairs – Folding small pairs is a common mistake made by beginners. In case of Caribbean Stud Poker, players will find themselves getting small pairs often. In the long run, these small pairs prove to be extremely valuable, owing to which players must avoid folding these small pairs.
- Avoid playing weak hands – Players who get a weak, unplayable hand must not hesitate to fold, as they will simply lose money in the long run. Experts say that players must fold if they have got a hand weaker than the Ace and King combination.
- Play the Ace and King combination properly – If players get the Ace and King combination, they should play only if the other card in their hand matches the dealer’s face-up card. Since dealers qualify most of the time, players must make doubly sure that their hand is strong enough to beat the dealer.
Advanced Caribbean Stud Strategy
Once players have grasped the basics, it is time to move on to advanced Caribbean Stud strategies. If players understand this strategy well and implement it properly, they can convert Caribbean Stud Poker into a player friendly game.
- Raise on a hand comprising pairs or better
- Fold hands lower than Ace and King
If players find that their first two cards are an Ace and a King, here is what they can do:
- Raise only if their third card is a Queen or a Jack and if the dealer’s face-up card is a King or an Ace
- Raise only if the dealer’s face-up card is a Queen or a lower card, which forms a pair with a card in their hand
- Raise if their third card happens to be a Queen and their fourth card is better than the face-up card of the dealer.
The golden rule is that players must fold if they get any other hand.
Is there a perfect strategy for Caribbean Stud Poker? Most advanced Caribbean Stud players, who have tried out a number of strategies at a number of casinos, ask this question. Several sources claim to have the perfect Caribbean Stud Poker strategy, and all players need to do conduct the required research before trying it out. Several players feel that advanced Caribbean Stud strategies are too difficult to understand, which is why they stick to the basic and advanced strategies outlined above.
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In a prior installment on Badeucey, we established a set of guidelines for the starting hands we should tend to play given that we were the first player to enter the pot. In this issue, the focus will be on what hands are playable when the pot has already been opened, and the factors that should be considered in order to determine if our holding is better played as a smooth-call or as a three-bet.
Pat Hands
Whenever you hold a playable pat hand, it is almost always in your best interest to reraise the opener and try to get the pot heads-up. A seven low with at a good three card underneath such as 2 3 5 6 7 increases the odds of scooping against a single opponent.
Some caution needs to be exercised with eight lows such as 2 5 6 7 8 and 3 45 6 8 where we essentially have no badugi hand. If we are up against an early position raiser, both of these hands should probably hit the muck.
This advice may seem overly tight, particularly with 3 4 5 6 8, however a solid player opening from early position will often either have a badugi or a very strong three-card badugi that they mostly plan to showdown unimproved. If our opponent is intent on going to the end regardless what happens in the hand, we are getting freerolled from the beginning.
The situation is different when the initial raiser originates from the cutoff or later position as this range will be weaker and not as showdown bound. In that circumstance, we should three-bet 3 4 5 6 8 in the hope that the pot is played heads-up and our opponent chooses to fold sometime before showdown.
One-Card Draws
Any made badugi that is an eight or lower should be reraised for both value and protection. If the raise comes from a steal position, reraising a rougher nine badugi such as 4 6 7 9 is also correct especially if they are loose and often drawing three. Since the underlying draw of 4 6 7 draw is quite rough, keeping the nine is probably best.
Holdings such as 2 5 6 9 can go either way. In straight Deuce-to-Seven Triple Draw we would always draw two in order to try and make stronger lows and any other nine we catch later on in the hand will help us in the same manner. However, in Badeucey discarding the 9 is forever eliminating one of our better badugi outs.
Therefore, with a hand like 2 5 6 9, we should tend to reraise and be flexible with our drawing decision depending on the remainder of the preflop action. If our reraise is successful in getting the pot heads-up we should probably keep the nine and draw one, and if it goes off multi-way we should opt to draw two.
When you hold very good one-card draws with a tri such as 2 3 5 7 or 2 3 4 8 where you plan to draw one, you also want to three-bet in the hopes of isolating your opponent. Even if we bump into a badugi, with premium draws to both sides your equity and playability is often quite good. In addition, we don’t want our reraising and drawing one range to be entirely comprised of badugis.
Three-Card Badugis (i.e. Two-Card Draws)
With three-card badugis, the decision between three-betting or just smooth-calling is often close. When making it we should take into account the opener’s position, your position, your hand, and the skill level of the players left to act behind you. For example, facing a somewhat tight early position opener with weak players in the blinds, flatting your entire three-card badugi range has merit in order to invite action players to enter the pot.
However, in most other situations it is usually best to reraise premium three-card badugis such as 2-3-5, 2-4-5, 3-4-5, 2-4-6, 2-3-7, and 2-4-7. There’s a value component to three-betting these hands in addition to increasing our scooping chances. In addition, as we discussed last issue, these hands effectively realize their equity relative to our opponent.
In particular, 3-4-5 gains tremendously getting the pot heads-up as it can win the badugi side unimproved, but can struggle to make strong lows due to potential straight draws. Hands such as 2-3-7 and 2-4-7 will not often win the badugi side unimproved, however, these holdings have strong two-way potential and three-betting them helps balance against doing so with only the lowest of our tri holdings.
Weaker three-card badugis should mostly be flatted and which hands are playable are a function of your opponent’s playing style, the position from which he opened, and your position. For example, if a tight player opens from first position and we are one seat over in the hijack we should fold a mediocre hand like 2-6-8.
Tournament Poker Tips For Advanced Players
While position helps, it’s hard to envision that our opponent is opening many worse hands thus we should not seek out an uphill battle with so many players left to act behind us. In this situation, the bottom of our continuing range would probably be holdings such as 3-4-6 and 2-4-8. These hands make stronger badugis than 2-6-8 and also have the potential to reduce our incomplete to a three-card four.
Poker Strategies For Advanced Players
Blind Defense
From the big blind you are getting good odds to continue against a single raise, however, it is difficult to defend profitably with as many hands as you can in another game such as Omaha eight-or-better. In Omaha hi-lo, you can take a flop with a somewhat junky hand and have a villain’s A A 2 3 drawing nearly dead once those three cards come down. However, in Badeucey your rough draws will only make rough hands, thus when you are up against the very top of your opponent’s range no miracle can save you.
When an opponent opens from early position, we must respect that range and play somewhat tight. While we can probably defend with any three-card seven or a smooth eight we must resist the temptation to play rougher holdings such as 3 7 8 that have reverse implied odds.
Cutoff and button opens are weaker, thus given the pot odds we can mostly defend any holding that we would have opened from those positions had the situation been reversed. For example, we can defend un-suited 2-3, 2-4, 2-5, and 2-7 holdings as well as a two-suited hand such as 2 3 7. Three-card badugis such as 5-6-8 and 3-7-8 are borderline plays; calling a button raise is fine but it is probably best to fold them against a cutoff open.
Poker Strategies For Advanced Players
It may not seem like we are defending a lot of hands but the responsibility is also borne by the small blind to ensure that an over aggressive late position opener will not automatically profit. Against a very loose raiser the best response is to punish them with more three-bets with your good hands as opposed to loosening up your calling standards significantly. In addition, someone playing too many hands from late position will often get punished later on in the hand as they are usually playing rough draws with reverse implied odds.
In Badeucey, getting too far out of line before the first draw will often cost you money in the later rounds. A solid foundation of starting holdings is required to successfully navigate the later streets. ♠
Online Poker Strategy Advanced
Kevin Haney is a former actuary of MetLife but left the corporate job to focus on his passions for poker and fitness. He is co-owner of Elite Fitness Club in Oceanport, NJ and is a certified personal trainer. With regards to poker he got his start way back in 2003 and particularly enjoys taking new players interested in mixed games under his wing and quickly making them proficient in all variants. His new mixed-games website Counting Outs is a great starting resource for a plethora of games ranging from the traditional to the exotic. He can be reached at haneyk612@gmail.com.