You’d be hard-pressed to find a successful poker player who doesn’t think that psychology is a crucial part of the game, especially among no-limit Texas hold’em players. Alan Schoonmaker understands this, and for this reason, he has written “Your Worst Poker Enemy.” This book is intended to show how your own psychological quirks can be your downfall at the poker table.

Using Psychology to Your Advantage

In five distinct sections, Schoonmaker shows how many players rely excessively on intuition, even when they know they should be applying logic. He shows players how to do a cold, hard assessment of their own play and the psychological errors that they make. He shows how players can identify these psychological errors in others to use to their advantage.

Psychology and the Evolution of Poker

Schoonmaker understands that in the 21st Century, poker is constantly evolving, as more and more people take up the game, as technological advances like hole card cameras and Internet play predominate. He talks about how players can analyze and adjust to these changes to stay ahead of the curve.

Understanding Your Own Psychology

Schoonmaker also offers techniques for understanding and combating the effects of tilt, an emotional overload that can occur from a series of bad beats or one terrible one, or from a run of bad luck. If a player lets it, tilt can destroy them, and Schoonmaker’s techniques and observations can help prevent this from happening.

Any poker library that includes a section on psychology would be incomplete without this volume. Those who benefit from it may also consider taking a look at Schoonmaker’s follow up work, “Your Best Poker Friend,” or the book’s predecessor, “The Psychology of Poker.”

Online poker players often feel like fish out of water the first time they get into a live poker game. They are not always sure of the stated rules of live play, let alone the unwritten rules.

If you’re wandering into a live poker game for the first time, there’s no need to worry. You’re playing the same game you’ve always played, just in a slightly different venue. Still, it’s good to know some of the understood etiquette of the game.

Private Vs. Public Games

If you are invited to a home game, it’s a very different situation than if you are playing in a public card room. In a home game, you should be on your best behavior to be sure you will be invited back, especially if you are a winning player. In a public room you should still behave yourself, but you may get a little more latitude.

In a public game, you are free to leave the table whenever you want, although if you pick up your chips, your seat will go to another player. In a private game, you should make it a point to stay a while, especially if you are integral to keeping the game going. If you have a big win, it is customary to give the opponents some chance to recoup their losses, rather than leave right away.

Chopping

In a public card room Texas hold’em game, if it is folded around to the small blind, he and the big blind may decide to “chop,” taking back their bets and starting a new hand. This is done to save time and so that the House does not benefit by taking a big percentage of a small pot.

The small blind may have to give up one chip in a chop. If you chop once, common etiquette demands you chop throughout the entire session, not only when it’s convenient for you.

Checking It Down

In some blind vs. blind situations, a player may want to “check it down” rather than chop. This happens in bad beat jackpot games when both players have a hand that may result in a bad beat jackpot.

Usually this means one player holds a pair and the other a big ace. Players simply check to the river and show down their hands.

In the early days of poker, there were many fewer games. The only games that were played were five card stud and five card draw. Today, these two games probably represent the spectrum of most transparent to least transparent card games. In five card draw, you don’t get to see any of your opponent’s cards, whereas in five card stud, you see almost all of them.

Five Card Stud

In order to overcome this problem, players developed a variation called Soko, also known as Canadian stud. For the most part, the rules are the same as in five card stud: Players put up an ante and get one card down and one card up. The lowest card showing is forced to make a small bet called a bring-in, subsequent players going clockwise may fold, complete the bring in to a full bet (or raise if it has already been completed), or call. Three more cards are dealt out face up, with a betting round in between each. After each player has been dealt five cards and made final bets, there is a showdown and the best hand wins the pot.

Five Card Stud Variant – Soko

The distinction that makes Soko interesting is in the rank of hands. In Soko, there are two additional hands. The four card straight (or Canadian straight) and the four card flush (Canadian flush). These hands fit in between one pair and two pair. This makes determining what an opponent has a little more challenging.

How Soko Makes Five Card Stud Better

In normal five card stud, if you hold (As) Ac 4d 6s and your opponent holds (X) 3h 5h Jh, you know that if your opponent doesn’t catch an ace, pair one of his up cards, or catch a heart on the fifth card, you are a lock to win. However, in Soko, your opponent may already have a four flush, meaning if you don’t pair one of your upcards on the final card, you may lose. Since a pair is commonly sufficient to win in regular five card stud, the additional Soko hands increase the complexity of the game significantly.

Dan Harrington was already a legend when he wrote “Harrington on Hold’em,” a three volume series revealing secrets for winning tournament no limit Texas hold’em. Once these books came out, however, he assured his place in poker history forever.

These three books became must reading for any no limit tournament poker player. The ideas that Harrington crystallized in the volumes are ideas that nearly every poker player can now recite by heart.

“Harrington on Cash Games”

For his next work, Harrington brought his expertise to the world of cash games. “Harrington on Cash Games,” a two volume set, was written to help players apply the same analytical approach that Harrington advocates for tournaments. Following this approach, anyone should be able to become a strong player.

“Harrington on Cash Games” Volume One

In volume one of Harrington on Cash Games” he discusses the basic ideas and elements that you need to know to be successful at poker. Ideas such as the basic principles of poker, why to bet, how to determine how much to bet and what it means when others bet. He then moves on to discussing the finer points of aggressive pre-flop and flop play.

“Harrington on Cash Games” Volume Two

In volume two, tight-aggressive turn and river play are analyzed. Harrington then goes on to explore the different kind of game situations that a player might face, such as whether or not to play a loose aggressive style, how to beat weak games and what to do about physical tells.

Using These Books

What’s nice about Harrington’s work is that the books are peppered with problems taken from real life examples of cash game play. Readers can play along with great (and not so great) players, trying to figure out what they would do in a given situation and then seeing the results. This can be of great benefit to the reader.

The books do not contain the kind of game-changing concepts that “Harrington on Hold’em” offered. However, they do provide a rich source of poker information for any reader that cares to give them a shot.

What is Durrrr Land? Durrrr Land is where nearly every pot is contested, where aggressive raises and re-raises are around every corner and where millions of dollars are won and lost in a matter of minutes. Durrrr Land is wherever Tom Dwan, known as Durrrr online, decides to play.

Welcome to Durrrr Land

Durrrr Land is usually the highest stakes tables at Full Tilt Poker, the popular online poker site. On any given day, you might find Durrrr multi-tabling both pot limit Omaha and no limit hold’em games, taking on all comers, although these tables are usually shorthanded due to the nosebleed stakes and the fact that so few players are willing to go up against Durrrr.

Phil Hellmuth in Durrrr Land

In 2008, Phil Hellmuth got a rude introduction to Durrrr Land in 2008 during the National Heads Up Poker Championship. On the third hand of the first round, the aggressive Durrrr got it all in with pocket tens against Hellmuth’s pocket aces. When a ten arrived to save Durrrr and give him the win, Hellmuth went on one of his usual tirades. Since Durrrr was barely old enough to legally play live games in the United States at the time, few players knew him well, and Hellmuth, as usual, failed to give his opponent enough credit. He has since acknowledged Durrrr’s skill, although both agree he got lucky on that particular hand.

Barry Greenstein in Durrrr Land

Barry Greenstein also got an unsettling taste of Durrrr Land when Durrrr was invited to play on GSN’s High Stakes Poker. In the critical hand, WSOP champion Peter Eastgate raised the pot to $3,500 with AK off suit, and Greenstein re-popped it to $15,000 on the button with AA. Durrrr, in the small blind with KQ of spades, decided to call. Eastgate called behind. The flop came 4s 2s Qh, giving Durrrr top pair and the second nut flush draw. He led out for $28,700, and Greenstein, with his aces, reraised to $100,000. Durrrr reraised to about $245,000, and Greenstein, perhaps putting Durrrr on the flush draw, top pair, or a bluff, moved in. Durrrr quickly called, to create a pot of nearly a million dollars. In a particularly cruel twist of poker fate, it was not a spade, but a second queen on the turn that crushed Greenstein.

If you’re going to run your own poker tournaments, you’re going to need a poker tournament clock. Fortunately, poker tournament clocks are easy to come by. You can buy a small timer designed specifically for this purpose, or, even better, you can go online to a site like PokerListings.com and use the in-browser poker tournament clock they provide there. It’s easy to customize it with your own settings, and when you display the clock on a monitor, everyone in the tournament can see how much time they have left in the round, just as with a casino or online tournament.

How to Use the Poker Tournament Clock

The most important thing to do with the tournament clock is to set the round time. This is the time that the big clock face that all the players will be watching is set to. Whatever you decide, 20 minutes, 30 minutes, 60 minutes, etc. as soon as you activate the clock, it will begin counting down from this number. Once it gets down to zero, you’ll raise the blinds and set the clock to continue, at which point it will again count down from whatever number you have set. The clock will generally flash or beep when the end of the round is approaching, so keep a lookout for this.

Other Details with the Poker Tournament Clock

You’ll also need to decide what the blinds will be for each round. Typically in a hold’em game, the blinds start at 25-25 or 25-50, and then get progressively higher. For fast games, blinds can double every round: 25-50, 50-100, 100-200, etc. For a longer blind structure, you may want to introduce some additional rounds: 25-50, 50-100, 75-150, 100-200, 150-300, etc. You may also wish to introduce blinds into the game. If you do, the blind size should not change in the round where you introduce the blinds, but they should progressively increase thereafter: 50-100, 100-200, 100-200 25, 150-300 50, 200-400 75, etc.

More About the Poker Tournament Clock

Rising blinds are critical to a successful poker tournament. Without them, poker tournaments could go on forever, with all players playing ridiculously tight. Use of the tournament clock makes it easy to handle round times and rising blinds.

What exactly are poker accessories? There was a time when people felt all they needed were a couple of decks of cards and maybe some plastic poker chips to play poker. That’s still true, but poker has become a more sophisticated pastime and a real industry, and there are many accessories available now that can enhance your enjoyment of the poker experience and give your game a real live poker feel.

Poker Accessories: Card Shufflers

Finding that shuffling is slowing down your game? Even when two decks in play, shuffling can bog things down. Many of your guests won’t be skilled shufflers and when they try to mix the cards, it can create a lot of unwanted down time. An automatic card shuffler can shuffle the cards for you to keep the action going.

Poker Accessories: Buttons

Nothing gives a poker game a professional feel like poker buttons. There’s the dealer button of course, a standard for every hold’em game, but there’s also a button for kill games, missed blinds and for players sitting out. Everything you see at your local casino can be had in your home.

Poker Accessories: Cut Cards

You don’t want anyone seeing the bottom card in the deck, as it can give away information to a player who shouldn’t have it. Casinos prevent this problem by using cut cards, a plastic card that the dealer cuts onto to hide the bottom card. Now, you can too. You can get cut cards in a variety of colors, so you have one for each of your decks with a few spares just in case.

Poker Accessories: Card Protectors

You only have to have your pocket aces swept away by the dealer once to appreciate the importance of a card protector. Sure you can use one of your chips as a card protector, but what if you want to go all-in? You can order custom card protectors that personalize your poker game as well as being practical. No one will mistake your customized card protector for an extra chip and no one will accidentally muck your winning hand when you have one of these stylish pieces protecting it.

“Elements of Poker” by Tommy Angelo is not like any poker book you have ever seen, because Tommy Angelo is not like any poker author you have ever seen. Tommy does things his own way, from his “Tommyisms,” his own self-created brand of poker terminology, to his humor and general approach to the game.

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Well my evening of playing Royal Holdem poker turned out to be quite fun.  You only play with cards, 10 and higher, all the other cards you take out of the deck.  There were four of us, so we had just enough cards to play with.

Its so weird because you get dealt a king, queen starting hand and think wow ok this isnt too bad, until you realize actually its not that good at all considering what everyone else could have!  The first player was out of the home tournament in five minutes!!  Its like turbo-charged poker!!  I managed to last another five minutes and then was busted by a flush.

Great fun was had by all and many laughs… its a great way to lighten things up and get the party atmosphere going! Or, if you just want to speed up your Holdem game and get a result quickly.

I have been invited to play a home game of Royal Holdem poker.  Ever heard of it, or played it?  Only tens and upwards count.

To be honest I am a little nervous and am not too sure what to expect.  But then again its just a home game with friends, so its just for fun.  Will let you know how it goes.