poker calculator report

Mzone Report: Playing “small Ball” Poker in Online Tournaments

While playing online poker tournaments you have no doubt taken notice of certain players’ styles of play. These styles could range from loose-passive to tight-aggressive and many variations in between that require a select strategy for counter attack.

You may be familiar with opponent profiles in other ways too. For instance, you can similarly use Phil Hellmuth’s guide that applies creature-like characters to your opponents such as an eagle or an elephant. I have added a profile to this guide as well called the “monkey” – specifically in mind for certain internet players.

The loose-aggressive types of players often come out swinging in the early stages. You can liken these types of players to the type of game many pros like Erik Lindgren, Daniel Negreanu and Phil Ivey love to play in the early stages. They call it “small ball poker” which basically means playing a lot of small sized pots and forcing opponents nearly every opportunity into making tough decisions. While a professional poker player invariably has an edge in the types of hands using this style of play, there isn’t as much an advantage to using it online, especially in the low buy in levels.

In the low limit tournaments, specifically up to about the $20-$30 range, you are still going to run into a lot of players who simply don’t know when to fold. The number of players that will play top pair, middle pair or call draws all in actually dominate the low level buy-ins. Now granted, they are usually the early departed crowd too, but that doesn’t mean all of them are gone. Some wise up enough after an early, lucky run and do in fact place and make the final table.

The point is small ball poker may be played online but you really have to pick your spots and opponents very, very selectively. Some examples of these opportunities may be against very tight players, near the money, and deep in the money. You can always use your tournament indicator poker calculator profiling grid to find know which players to make a move on. Otherwise, you are best to stick with an mzone strategy playing a tight aggressive game, because in the low limits, chips will eventually fall into your seat by virtue of frequent opponent mistakes.

Hopefully as your skill building in the game improves, you will be able to recognize spots to play without a hand, but rest assured that skill will be most useful in live, higher buy-in tournaments.

About the Author

Marty Smith has a free video strategy series for playing low limit online poker tournaments. He also shows how to use the tournament indicator poker calculator effectively in tournaments.

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Poker Calculator Report: Everybody Loves to Play Jack-ten

There was a point in the infancy of its popularity that the best hand to be holding in Texas Hold’em was Jack Ten suited, particularly because if it’s two way straight potential and seemingly solid suck-out capabilities when playing to the river.

I find now, during online play that Jack Ten is often played in big pots. Heck, you can even see it being played for big pots in the World Series of Poker, Full Tilt Cash Games, and the World Poker Tour.

Personally in the low limit tournaments I play, I will play Jack ten under certain favourable conditions. Outside of these conditions Jack Ten is merely a group five Sklansky hand and can often be dominated if you are calling raises with it. So for that reason I often toss it like any other group five hand or worse. But sometimes when those certain conditions are met, Jack Ten should be played. In fact NOT playing it, could be a mistake. Let me explain a couple of situations here.

If you have jack-ten and are in late position with several limpers and low blinds to boot, well this is more often than not, an instant call. Let’s say there are three limpers before you and the blinds are 15/30. The 3 limpers have added 90 chips to the pot and there are 45 from the blinds who have yet to act. Assuming the passive small blind is going to call and the mousy big blind checks as well, then it will cost you 30 chips into a pot of 150 giving splendid odds of 5:1. This is a no-brainer really as jack-ten is a hand that plays well against multiple players, and if you straighten out the pot could be enormous.

Jack ten is also a narrow underdog to bigger hands like ace-queen and ace-king and if you are facing pressure from a short stack, then calling an all-in is likely a good move as only an over pair has you far behind, but if your opponent turns over a low pair, it’s nearly even odds, so knowing your odds in poker is helpful.

If you are using a poker calculator, jack ten may always be shown as a playable hand given generous odds situations but don’t get caught up in calling all the time, especially in early stage tournament strategy play. The pots have to be worth it and your implied odds really need to be reasonably figured ahead of time, so as not to be burning chips with low outcome hands.

When I am in a pot with multiple players and the flop come 8d, 9d, Qs, I am extremely wary of draws and redraws out there so even if you are holding pocket kings here, cautious is the play.

About the Author

Marty Smith has video reviews of all the online poker calculators so you can see them being used before you decide which one is right for you. He also has a tournament strategy video series that is free just for signing up.