Mr. Micro doesn’t really care if people are chatting on the poker table. As long as he doesn’t let them provoke him he feels that it can be used to his advantage. A classic online tell is when a guy suddenly stops chatting. Then you know for sure that he has got a big hand!

When you play against really crazy players like this Italian guy you have to give up bluffing, it’s simply impossible. Mr. Micro knew this and instead of bluffing he started to call down and value bet lighter. It worked out fine and Mr. Micro started to build quite a stack. Even more important; the crazy Italian guy had a lucky streak and was also sitting behind a healthy stack of chips.

After an hour Mr. Micro finally got the type of hand he was waiting for – aces!
He bet out $0.70 from cut off and all the other players folded except for the Italian, who called. The flop was 3s 8h Jc and the Italian guy bet out $0.80, almost half the pot. At this point Mr. Micro felt sure he had the best hand. Even though the Italian was crazy Mr. Micro thought that the chance of him donk-betting (bet first out) with a set or two pair was very small. Mr. Micro also knew that the Italian guy would call a reraise with pretty much any pair or draw. This was a mandatory reraise for Mr. Micro and the Italian guy instantly called for 2 more dollars.

On the turn the pot was $5.30 and the card was another 3. The Italian guy bet out half the pot once more. Mr. Micro looked at the 3 as a good card because he was now ahead against any other two pair hands. Mr. Micro reraised once again, now to a total of $7 and the Italian guy called super quickly.

In Mr. Micros opinion a quick call like that is often a sign of weakness. A player with a marginal hand will often call quickly to get respect by showing that he doesn’t intend to give up his hand. The pot was now $19.30 and Mr. Micro felt pretty sure that he was up against a hand like KJ.

The river brought a 6 of hearts and the board now looked like this: 3s 8h Jc 3c 6h. The Italian guy bet only $2 into the 19 dollar-pot and Mr. Micro started to think of how much he would raise. Surely the Italian could have him beat but most of the time he will loose a lot of value by just calling this bet.

Mr. Micro raised to a total of 12 dollars and the Italian guy called immediately. The Italian showed his Q3 off suite and wrote “ahahaha, I take it home to Rome” in the chat box. Mr. Micro wanted to puke all over himself, but this wasn’t the first time something like this happened to him so he just sighed heavily and continued playing poker.

When you play against maniacs like this you have to be able to take bad beats. In the long run they will give you their money but once in a while they will get lucky. These players rarely realize or care about how bad they are playing. They easily forget their losses but remember every time they had a lucky run. This sort of behavior recreates their bad habits and without them even knowing it makes them into big losers in the long run. This is exactly the type of players Mr. Micro loves to be up against because they will do all the work building the pots for him.

In this particular case the Italian guy even played his hand badly when he hit trips. He should have realized that Mr. Micro had a hand like aces or kings and move all in on the river instead of just calling the raise. Now Mr. Micro was left with a little bit more than a third of his stack, but he could have lost it all.

Later that night Mr. Micro looked down at two pretty ladies. He was the big blind and this was just the type of hand Mr. Micro had been waiting for. Now all he needed was for the Aggro Monkey sitting directly to his right to something stupid. Online poker at this level often has a lot of these really bad players, so Mr. Micro was used to this situation.

The player under the gun started by raising 3,5 big blind’s. The Aggro Monkey instantly raised it to 11 bb’s. Mr. Micro in his turn re-raised to 31bb’s, the original raiser under the gun folded and the Aggro Monkey called. This was perfect for Mr. Micro, he had position and he knew he had the best hand at the moment because the Aggro Monkey definitely would have shoved his re raise if he had AK, AA or KK.

The flop was Ks 2s 8d. The Aggro Monkey thought for some time before he checked. Mr. Micro saw this as weakness. He knew the Aggro Monkey would have bet a flush draw, and definitely a king. Mr. Micro checked behind, because his opponent was so aggressive he wanted to set a trap.

The turn was the five of spades, so the board looked like this: Ks 2s 8d 5s. Now the Aggro Monkey did exactly what Mr. Micro thought he would. He instantly made a bet for all his money, all in. Even though Mr. Micro didn’t have a spade, and the board looked quite scary. He felt sure that the best hand he was up against was a flush draw, or a small pair and a flush draw. And therefore he called.

The Aggro Monkey showed 9s9h, the river was a blank and Mr. Micro took home a big pot. It was definitely worth the wait!

It’s hard playing pocket pairs when there are over cards and flush draws on the board. But if you can read your opponent by his style and betting pattern, it definitely makes it easier to take the right decisions.

Mr. Micro is 24 years old and has played poker for over a year. He is playing 20NL cash games at the moment. He likes to play 6 max tables, 4-6 tables at a time, and he is using pokertracker for tactical and statistic support.

So far he has cashed out most of his winnings instead of moving up in stakes. This is mostly because he still feels that he needs to improve his game, and also afford to pay his bills. Mr. Micro hopes this blog will give him a chance to share his poker adventures, discuss poker tactics and analyse played hands with you.

So let’s get to the action!

A betting size tell:
Yesterday Mr. Micro found himself on the button with Qc 8c. Everyone folded to him, so he thought this was a good opportunity to use his position and steal the beautiful blinds. At first he hesitated because Qc 8c was a hand from the bottom of his stealing range at this particular table. He had been forced to narrow his opening range from the button because the second player to his left, the big blind, was a real donkey!

But Mr. Micro raised to $0.70, as usual the nitty old man to his left folded. But of course the donkey instantly called his bet. The flop was Jh 8h 5c and the donkey bet out half the pot. At this point Mr. Micro asked himself; why did the donkey only bet half the pot?

This was a story he felt he heard before:
- If the donkey had an over pair he would have re raised before the flop.
- With a set or two pair he probably would have check raised the flop.
- If he had a jack he would surely bet more then half the pot to protect his hand from flush draws.

So Mr. Micro figured the donkey either had a weak pair, a straight draw or a flush draw. Because he was in position, faced a pretty small bet and probably even had the best hand – Mr. Micros call was confident.

The turn was a blank, and once again the donkey bet half the pot. At this point Mr. Micro felt even more convinced he was up against a flush draw or maybe a straight draw. For a second he considered raising here to protect his hand, but he didn’t want to turn his hand into a bluff or build a big pot against this donkey. So once again Mr. Micro smoothly called the donkey’s bet.

The river was another blank, the donkey quickly checked and so did Mr. Micro.
He was happy to see the donkey show Ah4h for a busted flush draw, and felt really pleased with himself for trusting his read. You have to trust your read when you play poker.

Comments to the game:
RightAdviser (RA) gets good hands, KQs. RA raises 3 times big blind and gets two calls.

The old lady raises and RA calls. RA gets a little bit disorientated, likely due to beeing a capture recorder dummy and therefore gets two abusive votes. What happens after this is that the hand is split RA and the old lady. That’s all.

What did I miss in this poker hand analysis? And what was lessons learned?
- Well don’t play against old ladies!

Yours sincerely,
Poke Doctor

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Are citizens of the United States aloud to exchange in real money poker games online?

Answer…

Currently you’re aloud to play for real money online if you’re a US citizen as long as you don’t reside in one of the eleven states which currently has it banned. The eleven states that have banned online gambling are as followed.

• Illinois
• Indiana
• Louisiana
• Michigan
• Nevada
• New Jersey
• New York
• Oregon
• South Dakota
• Washington
• Wisconsin

There was a law which passed in 2006 banning US financial institutions from accepting US citizen’s deposits and withdrawls on online gambling sites.

It also made it illegal for online casinos to accept money from US financial institutions which caused most online casinos to leave the US market. Some online casinos still do allow US players but you’ll need to use a unique method of making payments and withdrawls.

My question is a percentages question that deals with calculations. I’m wondering what the percentage is of at least one player holding an ace pre-flop based on a ten player table.

Answer…

Although the answer may seem high to you, the actual percentage of at least one player holding an ace pre-flop is 86.7%. The fact is with ten players on a table basically 40% of the cards are dealt out and with four aces being in the deck it means there is an excellent chance someone is holding an ace.

This doesn’t mean much though because although someone may be holding an ace there kicker may not be great which means the ace isn’t overly powerful. The percentages drop tremendously when you start looking at the chances of someone receiving an ace and face card for instance.

My friends and I and were playing poker tonight and we came across a new problem to us which we weren’t sure how to settle so we just decided to call it a push pot and split the chips.

The situation was as followed…

The board had all hearts and the following cards were there – A, 10, 7, 6, 3

My friend has the 2 of hearts and I had the jack of hearts in my hand.

Should I have won this pot because my jack was higher then his 2 or was splitting the pot the correct thing to do?

Answer…

This is a great question that often confuses new players to the game. To answer your question though you should have won the hand because simply put in Texas Hold’em the goal is to produce the best five card hand you possibly can.

In this instance you would have had the higher straight because your Jack of hearts would have replaced the three of hearts meaning this.

Your hand – A, J, 10, 7, 6

Your friends hand – A, 10, 7, 6, 3

As you can see by using the best possible five cards in play you would have finished with the better hand and should have won the pot.

My friends were playing a real money game last night and when we were down to three players one player kept on hiding his chips under the table out of sight, is this legal?

Answer…

It’s absolutely against poker rules to hide your chips from your opponents as it plays a huge role in how betting takes place. Next time your friend hides his chips you can kindly ask him to place them back on the table so you can view them all. Also you should try keeping your chips in order from highest to lowest so that other players have an idea of how many chips you’re playing with.

I was wondering if you’re aloud to check raise in Texas Hold’em?

If you can could you also specify some of the times you would predominately check raise?

Answer

One of the best ways to hide the fact that you have a good hand is to do something called check raising. When you have a good hand you don’t always want to lead out and bet your cards as often times everyone around the table will fold. To mask the fact you’re holding a good hand you should check and wait until someone else bets. Once someone bets and its back around to you on the table you should put in a raise. This will help draw people in as they’ve already invested money into the pot.

Check raising is used in other parts of the game as well including when you’re trying to find out if someone is bluffing you or when you’re trying to bluff someone else. You can get caught doing this but you can also scare your opponent into folding which is what you’re aiming to do here.