MANNERS MAKETH MONEY! The legendary Amarillo “Slim” Preston once said, “The first thing a gambler has to do is to make friends with himself!” If things went wrong Amarillo believed you wouldn’t last long at the poker table if you always beat up on yourself or anyone else for that matter. Slim practiced a subtle, quiet and dangerous form of aggression called “good manners”. He was always friendly and courteous to players at his table. This sounds homely and very American but his true intention was unveiled in another of his famous sayings, “You can sheer a sheep dozens of times but you can only skin it once!” Keep this wisdom in mind if you’re playing for high stakes in the same social circle on a regular basis. It also works online if you create that sort of character through the chat-box.
NO LIMIT! NO MERCY! One of the more brutal things you learn in no-limit Hold’em is the quality of your hand can only be measured in relation to its opposition. If you have a pair and nobody else does, you’ve got the premium hand. If you have three of a kind AND a pair it’s a lousy hand if there’s a straight flush out there. It’s that simple. Don’t get caught with the second best hand in no-limit if the stakes are high. If you’re dealt a pair of black queens and the flop comes three diamonds don’t bet your house. The flush is almost certainly going to happen. Conversely if you’re holding a pair of queens and a third female royalty card shows up on an otherwise unremarkable flop, smile that inner smile and play slow and cautious to draw as much money into the pot as possible because likely it’s all going to belong to you.
AGGRESSION BEATS CALLING! Aggression beats calling in no-limit over the long run. Here’s why. You have two ways of winning with aggression and only one if you limp along just calling. An aggressive player can win by bluffing, particularly if he has a sky-scraping stack, and he can win by having a premium hand. A majority of no-limit games don’t reach the showdown which gives you an idea of how often aggressive betting wins the day. A caller can only really win at the showdown with a nut hand. This will usually mean he loses many more games than he wins.
ALL THE ACES poker column: Monday, February 27, 2006: Online Poker: Using The Pre-Action Buttons
