In reality nothing could be further from the truth. Bluffing is one of the biggest mistakes that beginning players make. If you can only learn one habit when you start out in the game of poker, it’s to learn how to fold.

Always try and remember that bluffing is just one of the arrows in your poker quiver. Bring it out sparingly, and instead, rely on firing your killer shots when you have a great hand.

One thing to be particularly careful of is a phenomenon known as the ‘bluffing vortex.’ This occurs when you start bluffing, with a view of folding early in the hand, but the texture of the board convinces your mind to keep on pounding away.

Maybe you pick up a draw, or a weak hand that can be improved on further streets. There are so many ways that your mind will convince you to continue barrelling because everyone hates to fold.

Another thing for beginners to remember is to pay attention to the hands you are choosing to bluff with. Some player’s choose to bluff with hands that have a high probability of actually winning at showdown. Sometimes, your weak pairs and ace high hands should be checked back on the river, because they will win a high percentage of the time.

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The first time that you are presented with the option to raise occurs pre flop. In the early stages of a tournament the common practice is to raise 3x the big blind, then as the blinds get bigger, and the antes are introduced, players generally raise 2x the big blind.

After the pre flop action, you will find yourself at the flop. On this street your bet size is generally going to be anywhere between 50% and 75% of the pot.

You bet the same amount when you have a made hand, and when you have a bluff, in order to balance your play. This way it is more difficult for the better players to exploit you.

Turn and river betting is a lot more complicated, especially in Betfair WSOP 2013 satellites, and largely depends on the strength of your hand, and the read you have on your opponent.

When in these situations, remember that there are only two reasons to bet. Either you are trying to extract value from a worse hand, or you want a better hand to fold because you have a bluff.

Over betting the pot is a definition given when you bet more than the pot contains. This is a classic mistake that beginners have when they have a strong hand. The excitement of hitting the hand makes them forget that their opponent needs to have a hand to call.

According to the Betfair poker news, over bets should be avoided unless you really believe your opponent is going to call, or your game becomes more advanced.

The first difference you will notice when the antes kick in is the experienced players widen their pre flop opening ranges and make their bet sizing smaller. The current modus operandi is to min-raise when the antes kick-in. The reasoning is simply because there is so much more money in the pot to be won when the forced antes join the small and big blind. So when you reach this stage of the tournament you too should also be opening wider if your stack size allow you the freedom.

Given the fact that you know a lot of players are opening a lot wider means you can now three-bet wider. Just make sure that you focus your attention on the more aggressive players and it is particularly useful if your three-bet is aimed at a player whose only options are to four-bet jam or fold as this remove their ability to four-bet light as often.

If you are on the receiving end of heavy three-betting then you need to do something about it. Either stop opening so wide so the next time you are three-bet you have a strong hand to counter, or fire in some loose four-bets of your own. Once again make sure you are deep-stacked before putting a large percentage of your stack at risk.

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A tight-aggressive cash game player sits down to play $1/2 No-Limit Hold’em (full ring) in a live casino. The player has decided that the best way to win money is to sit tight and play a tight range consisting of premium hands, with a little more looseness around the button.

There is a limp and a raise to $4 before you look down to see [Ad] [Kd] and make it $20 to play and only the limper calls. The flop is [Tc] [6d] [2c] and your opponent check-calls a $20 c-bet. The turn is the [Kc], and the same action ensues this time for $45. The river is the [6c] and your opponent leads for $70 and you make the call with top pair and your opponent turns over [Th] [6s] for the full house.

The sight of the [Th] [6s], is like showing a bull a red pair of underpants.

“He called my $20 three-bet with ten six off suit?”

Before you know it your game has lapsed. You are listening to their calls to straddle and are doing so. You start to open every single hand and flat three-bets with abandon because you are desperate for the one upmanship between you and the ‘ten six’ guy. Before you know it you have lost your stack through ‘death my a thousand cuts’ as you decided to keep up with the Joneses and didn’t hit a single hand.

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The basics of the two games are the same. In both games you are dealt two hole cards face down and every player involved in the hand will see a flop, turn and a river that are used to create the best five-card hand. The only difference with Limit Hold’em concerns the betting limitations with a fixed betting pattern used for flop, turn and river making big raises and the all-in move impossible scenarios.
Here is some guidance if you fancy a flutter at the LH tables on online with Betfair Poker …

Watch and Learn
You are new to the game so there is no need to get jiggy with it. Instead, you can take the opportunity to fold quite liberally in exchange for the time to watch and learn from the rest of the players seated around the table.

Position
Position is just as important in LH and it is in NLHE. Always value your position and adjust your starting hand selection accordingly.

Flop Play
If you have nothing after the flop then fold your hand. This is not the game to try and run a bluff, as your opponent will most likely call even with the worse possible hand.

Beware the Bad Beat
The bad players – and some of the good ones – will pay to see every street, so you are going to get sucked out on occasion. Deal with it and don’t allow the bad beats to change your style of play. Over the long run your strict hand selection will pay dividends.

If you were chosen last, then it is likely that you were not the greatest footballer, hence the reason nobody really wanted you on there side. To benefit from this situation you could position your best player in the area that the weakest player was defending. This is known as isolating the weak area of the team.

In poker, the same rings true. You need to identify the weaker players at the table in Betfair Poker Live Prague events and target them in the same way. The best way to do this is to table select very carefully. Identify a weak player and then take a seat to the left of that player.

The closer you are the better. If you are playing in a live game and are not in a great position, in relation to the weak player, then ask for a ‘seat change’ button. It might feel a little uncomfortable at first, but it’s highly probable the weak player won’t even understand why you want to sit to his left. He might think you just want to be friendly.

When the weak player limps, you should raise. When the weak player raises you should re-raise. Always apply pressure on the weakest player at the table, keeping one eye on the other players who are smart enough to figure out what you are doing.

According to the Betfair WSOP 2013 page, the greatest position to be in is occupying a seat to the left of a weak player, and nobody at the table realises what you are even doing.

It was cleverly bolted onto the European Poker (EPT) and World Poker Tours (WPT), which were operating at the same time. The bolt on was in part due to the claim that poker is a mind sport. But what exactly is a mind sport?

The wiki description simply states that a mind sport is: ‘a game of skill where the mental component is more significant than the physical.’

This is part of the problem for poker because not too many of the right people are standing on their chair and voicing their unanimous opinion that poker is a game of skill.

That is except Brooklyn judge, Jack B. Weinstein, who in August of last year became the first judge to declare poker as a game of skill.

The declaration came in a case concerning Lawrence DiCristina who ran a warehouse where poker games were played and he took 5% of each nights winning to cover his expenses and make a profit.

He was staring down the barrel of a 10-year prison sentence until Judge Weinstein made his ruling.

But, in Europe, the Mind Sports Festival moves on unabated and a huge poker tour always accompanies the traveling circus.

“I think poker definitely has a place amongst other mind sports,” said professional poker player, and sideline reporter, Kara Scott at the recent Mind sports Festival in Baden, Austria.

“A lot of people who play poker do tend to play a lot of the other games that are very similar, such as Backgammon.”

The next stop for the Mind Sports festival is Marbella and it will once again work alongside the WPT, who will operate a National Series event; poker, Scrabble, e-sports, chess and Risk.

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The first player of the month award has gone to the German Ole Schemion. Schemion currently stands at 18th place in the world charts proper, but holds the number one spot in his country Germany. In the world of poker, topping the German chart is something to be proud of as it oozes class.

Germany currently sits in seventh place in the GPI national rankings, but if the kids from Deutschland keep on playing the way they have, then this position is only set to rise. Players like Marvin Rettenmaier, Philipp Gruissem, Tobias Reinkemeier, Fabian Quoss, Dominik Nitsche and Igor Kurganov have all been keep kicking up a fuss of late.

Rettenmaier won the 2012 GPI European Player of the Year award after winning back-to-back WPT titles, Nitsche is now looking for the Triple Crown after securing WSOP and WPT victories, Schemion won both the Partouche Main Event and the Amsterdam Masters Classics in 2012 and the quartet of Gruissem, Quoss, Reinkemeier and Kurganov are taking down six and seven figure high roller scores for fun.

The February GPI Player of the Month is in full swing and guess what? Yet again there is another German heading the field with Igor Kurganov setting the pace with over $1.4 million taken out of the Aussie Millions alone.

Can anyone stop the German Juggernaut in 2013?

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There are numerous types of money, but one type you do not want to see sat in front of you during a game is scared money. Whilst you definitely don’t want to see it occupying your stack, you do want to see it in others.

Scared money is simply money that people cannot afford to lose. There could be a wide variety of reasons that the player is scared, but they invariably revolve around poor bankroll management.

Let’s imagine you are married with five children. You have just received your pay packet and have stopped off in the club on the way home for a well-deserved drink. There is a poker game going on and you sit down in it. That weekly pay packet is only going to pay off your debts and feed your family for the week. In the first hour alone you have lost two-thirds of it. That final third is scared money. You simply cannot lose it and that means your decisions will be made based on the cash and not the correct poker odds.

When an opponent is playing with scared money they are exploitable. Good players can put pressure on with excessive bluffing, because the player with the scared money cannot call without the nuts. If you notice someone playing with scared money then you should also take the same line.

Always play within your bankroll. Do not bring scared money to the party.

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If you are serious about your poker and play at sites such as http://betting.betfair.com/poker/ then you should pay attention to this challenge. If you forget the obvious quality that Coimbra possesses, the road he travels should be one you would want to follow. The success, or failure, of poker rests on your management of cash and Coimbra is going to have to do a world-class job at this in order for him to be a success. You know the old adage. If you want to achieve something great, then find someone who has already done it and mimic.

During his challenge Coimbra will be free to deploy any form of bankroll management he chooses. If he believes that he has an edge in a certain type of game, then he may deploy more aggressive bankroll management rules. He will generally stick to the 45, 90 or 180 man tournaments until his roll increases, and he will also add in a splash of free roll tournaments.

Another vital part of the Coimbra challenge, and one you must also take note of, is review. He will have to consistently monitor his performances to find errors in his game, and fix them as soon as possible. He will also be searching for ways to exploit the games he is playing in – he will never stop working.

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