Be Chair Committed

How many times have you heard that the key to playing winning poker is all in the starting hand selection? While it is true that it is a great start, the real key to playing winning hold em is recognizing traps and avoiding them. New players are especially vulnerable to overly aggressive preflop play with a premium starting hand. They over bet the pot preflop to narrow the field, only to find the flop missed them completely. The next thing you know, they are bluffing the flop to represent a strong hand and being called down by an opponent. Feeling pot committed, the player pushes all in on the river hoping to make their opponent fold, but instead gets called. They are now busted out of the tournament because their AKs met up with QQ. The only thing left for them to do now is to walk away from the table mumbling about what a bad call QQ made because they might have had Aces. Aggression is a good thing, when you have the best of it. It is folly when you are behind.

One of the biggest obstacles for new players to overcome in hold em is recognizing trap situations. This is especially important in tournament play where you are limited to a certain number of chips. Anyone who has ever read a book on poker knows what are considered the best starting hands. But that is all they are, starting hands. Those pocket aces looked great until you saw the flop of K6K. Instead of proceeding cautiously, many new players convince themselves that either A.) Their opponent doesn’t have a King or B.) Another Ace will come. After being busted out of the tournament, they complain about what a bad beat they had. “I can’t believe my Aces were cracked by KJs!” Personally I don’t consider this a bad beat. The KJs did not bust you out of the tournament. You did it to yourself. You were counting on your 2 cards winning in a 7 card game. The odds were not in your favor...more

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