Nos astuces poker

Need a helping hand? Browse our tips and techniques to improve your game and impress your opponents.

#1. Choose between Cash-Game or Multi-Table Tournaments

The first choice you'll have to make when you arrive at the casino to play poker is the choice of game format.

There are two main categories: cash games and tournaments (MTTs and Sit and Gos).

The first big difference between the two formats is that you can leave a cash-game at any time, whereas you never know how long a tournament will last. If you know you have to work early the next morning, choose cash-game. That way, you can leave the game whenever you like.

In cash games, you play your money directly. On a €1/€2 blinds table, you put down a certain amount in euros (usually a minimum of €50 and a maximum of 100 blinds, in this case €200). When you pay a €40 bet on the river, it's really €40 you've invested in the move. Since you have the option of rebuying, you never know how much you're going to invest during the game, and you'd better stick to a set budget for the evening if you don't want any unpleasant surprises.

In tournaments, you pay a pre-defined amount of money, which you should already consider to be lost, and you're assured that you can't invest more than the buy-in. In exchange for this sum, you're given a starting stack which you must build up in an attempt to become the last player in the tournament to own any chips. Once you've lost all your chips, you're out of the tournament.

 

The advantages of cash games:

  • You can leave the table at any time (game time control).
  • You can play with a lot of depth (you can have 100 blinds all the time).
  • The blinds don't increase and favor good play.

 

The advantages of tournaments:

  • You have greater control over the money you invest (the tournament buy-in).
  • You have the chance to win big. The winner of a tournament can sometimes win 100 times their stake.
  • It offers an interesting and varied challenge (being the last to get chips).            

Depending on how much time you have, or how competitive you are, you'll have to choose between cash games and tournaments. The multi-table tournaments can be a good entry point to familiarize yourself with poker and see it as a sport rather than a money game. You're in control of how much you're going to spend over the course of the evening, and above all, if you go far enough, you'll discover many different player profiles and game situations, so you'll learn a lot for the future.

#2. Preflop probabilities

At the poker table, you'll quickly come to grips with the odds. As early as your first live tournament, some of the more seasoned players will say things like: "You had an 80% chance of winning that hand! ", "You were on a coin flip! " or "You had 8 outs to save yourself!

It's a good idea to know some basic probabilities before taking part in poker tournaments, especially pre-flop play.

50/50 (or coin flip): a coin flip is when you have a 50% chance of winning. It's also sometimes called a 50/50. The most common situation in poker for a coin flip is a match between a pair and two preflop all-in cards.

Example: if you go all-in with a pair of 8s against a mismatched King-Queen, you'll have a 53% chance of winning (against 47% for your opponent). If your opponent has 2 top cards of the same suit, you're closer to a true tie (51%/49%).

You'll quickly see that the coin flip is inevitable in a tournament, simply because the structure of the game means that you'll often find yourself with a small stack and in a situation where you'll have to commit your chips preflop.

The 70/30: when you go all-in with a hand like As-Queens against a hand like As-9s, you have one card in common with your opponent, but your second card is higher. At all-in preflop, you have a 70% chance of winning, while your opponent has a 23% chance of winning (the remainder being the probability of splitting the hand). If your opponent has a matching hand, the odds increase slightly, to 28%. By convention, we say you're on a 70/30 in this kind of situation (or a 30/70 if you're the player with the worst hand).

Caution: Bear in mind that losing a 70/30 happens 1 time out of 3. It always seems unfair to lose this kind of confrontation, but it happens very often.

The 80/20: When you go all-in with a pair higher to your opponent's, for example with a pair of Jacks in your hand when your opponent has a pair of 6s, you have a statistical 80% chance of winning, as your opponent can only beat you by finding a 6 on the board or an improbable straight or flush.

Caution: Never forget that even if you're heavily favored on an 80/20, you still have a 1-in-5 chance of losing. We rarely remember the 80/20 we've won, and tend to focus on the times we've lost.

At poker, you should go all-in when you have the best hand. However, there are many situations in which you'll want to try your luck with dominated hands, and don't forget that you can rarely win a hand. Even if you only have a 5% chance of winning a hand, it's still possible, and you shouldn't think of yourself as drawing dead, but believe in your chances. 

#3. Calculating the outs

Calculating your outs means counting the number of cards that can improve your hand and enable you to beat your opponent, who has a better game than you at any given moment.

Imagine you go all-in preflop with a pair of Kings against an opponent holding a pair of Aces, and your direct outs are the last 2 Kings in the pack. Of course, sometimes you can also win the hand by finding a straight or a flush, but the occurrence is so remote that it's hardly worth considering.

We often speak of outs, or possibilities for improvement, when we have a decision to make on the flop or the turn.

Example: You have [8♣️] [9♦️] on a flop [Q♥️] [6♥️] [7♣️] and you are faced with a bet from your opponent, who you suspect has a better hand than you at this particular point in the hand. 8 cards can then improve your hand and give you the winning hand on the turn or river, i.e., all 5s and 10s of the deck, i.e., 8 outs.

To bring this notion of outs down to your percentage chances of winning the hand, there's a very simple calculation system that can help you determine your chances. Simply multiply your number of outs by 4 on the flop or by 2 on the turn to find out your approximate chances of success in the hand.

In the example above, you have 8 outs x 4 = 32% chance that your draw will materialize and you'll win.

Number of outs:

Belly draw: 4 outs (16% on the flop, 8% on the turn)

Straight draw on both ends: 8 outs (32% on the flop, 16% on the turn)

Color draw: 9 outs (36% on the flop, 18% on the turn)

Straight draw on both ends + flush draw: 15 outs (60% on the flop, 30% on the turn)

Note that if you have a big draw on the flop, such as a straight draw on both ends matched with a flush draw, you're often favored against any hand if the money goes in the middle on the flop.

Be careful! Sometimes, you'll determine a certain number of outs, without having any real certainty about the opponent's hand, which can be misleading. Imagine you have a flush draw, but your opponent has a higher flush draw. Your outs would then no longer be valid, and you'd just have to hope for the best to get out of this situation.

#4. Managing your bankroll / budget

The most important thing to remember at poker is that it's a game, and you shouldn't put yourself at financial risk by playing cards. The principle of bankroll management allows you to have a safety mattress in case of a downswing.

In theory, the bankroll represents the money you devote to poker. A sum you can afford to lose without it affecting your daily life, money you devote to your favorite pastime and which you don't need to live.

The easiest way is to allocate a certain amount of money to poker, either by setting up a budget poker per month, or by managing a bankroll, which is a fluctuating amount of money that you only use to play at poker.

Bankroll management

One of the fundamental rules of bankroll management is not to be afraid of losing the money you've invested in a tournament. If losing money affects you, you'll be playing Scared Money. It's never a good idea to play with the fear of losing everything. If you think of the money you've invested in your tournament as money you could have put into any exit (and which you've already lost), you'll be much freer to make decisions. 

Managing your bankroll is all about having enough money to get through the bad times. That's why you need to have a certain amount in your bankroll for the tournaments you want to play. Online, we often talk about the need to have 100 buy-ins in your bankroll to be able to play a tournament with peace of mind. This may sound like a lot, but given that a good player enters the paid positions 15% of the time, it doesn't seem excessive.

Live, it's quite different, because the level is generally lower, and good players can very well run at 30% ITM. You'd need to have 50 buy-ins in front of you to avoid being affected by a big bad run on your regular tournaments.

The most important thing is to be comfortable with the limit you're playing. The more disconnected you are from the importance of the result, the better conditions you'll be in to perform. Of course, you can indulge yourself from time to time by trying your luck in an out-of-bankroll tournament, but this should remain the exception.

Satellite tournaments are an excellent alternative for accessing the tournaments of your dreams at a lower cost. Taking part in the BPC Main Event may be out of your budget, but playing the event through a qualifier can be an interesting option if you don't want to put yourself at risk and try a shot at a more ambitious tournament, which could give your bankroll a nice boost.

 

#5. Tournament formats

If you want to take part in live tournaments, first find out about the tournament format, buy-in, length of levels and guarantee.

Freezeout tournaments are tournaments where you only have one chance in the tournament. For the buy-in amount, you are given a certain number of chips - your starting stack. If you lose all your chips, you're out of the tournament.

Re-entry tournaments allow you to re-enter a tournament from which you have just been eliminated. By paying for a new entry, you get a new starting stack and a new table. Some tournaments offer unlimited re-entries, while others allow a certain number of re-entries within a given time frame. Many tournaments allow only one re-entry, or one re-entry per day 1. The period when re-entries are allowed is announced in the tournament programs. It may be for a few levels, or for the whole of day 1, depending on the tournament.

Even though these are less and less common in today's tournament schedule, before the introduction of the re-entry system there were rebuy tournaments, which offered the possibility of rebuying (buying back a starting stack) for a certain period of time if you lost your chips, and the possibility of buying an add-on at the end of the rebuy period. This usually led to the creation of large prizepools for low-cost, accessible tournaments. 

Knockout (KO) tournaments are tournaments in which part of the prize money is distributed among the highest-ranked players, and the rest is distributed as bounties when a player is eliminated. The winner also takes the bounty placed on their head. In recent years, Progressive Knockout tournaments have sprung up on the Internet and in casinos. The bonuses increase as the tournament progresses. When you eliminate a player, you win half their bounty and the other half is added to your bonus. As the tournament progresses, the bounties on each player become considerable and clearly affect the way players play. Trying to eliminate someone can become very interesting and make you make decisions you wouldn't have made in a normal tournament.

Recently, we've also seen the arrival of Mistery Bounty tournaments, which promise variable bounties depending on the players eliminated. This means that when you eliminate a player, you don't know how much the bounty associated with their elimination will be, with huge variations in amounts between different bounties.

Satellite tournaments are tournaments that give you access to bigger tournaments without having to pay the buy-in for the tournament in question. Let's say you want to play in the €1,100 Belgian Poker Challenge Main Event. You don't have the bankroll for the buy-in and decide to take part in a satellite at €125 per entry. Depending on the number of players registered for the tournament, the winners will win a ticket to the Main Event. In the above example, one player out of 8 will walk away with a ticket to the festival's big tournament. 

#6. The importance of position

At poker and No Limit Hold'em in particular, you'll quickly hear about the importance of position at the table at poker.

Position defines your place at the table. You can be first to speak (UTG), in the middle of the speech (MP), at the end of the speech (as at the button) or in the blinds (SB, BB).

But above all, position is the idea of speaking after others.

Being in position means being the last to speak, and that's really what you want before you decide to enter a shot. If you're the last to speak, you have all the information you need before making your decision. If your opponent has bet, you can pay and stop the charge, if your opponent has checked, you can check and see the card for free.

On the contrary, being out of position defines the fact of having to speak before the others. Playing from the blinds is clearly the most difficult position to play, since you're the first to act on the flop, turn and river. Playing out of position is like playing blind, with no information to help you make your decisions.

It has long been proven that you lose much more money out of position than in position, and that the worst position at a poker table is the big blind (not only do you pay money without looking at your cards, but you also find yourself out of position).

The importance of position means you have to be very careful when selecting your starting hands in the earliest positions at the table. At the beginning of the hand (UTG, +1, +2), it's in your interest not to open with just any hand, and to favor big starting hands. At the end of the table, you'll find it easier to open your game, because you'll benefit from the position more often, and your hand will be easier to play post-flop.

There are a number of tables on the Internet that you can easily find out from which hands you should raise in which positions. This can be a great help in familiarizing yourself with the concept of open range, and also in understanding the profiles of the different players at the table according to the hands you've already seen them play.

The different positions at a full ring table:

UTG: Under The Gun

+1: UTG+1

+2: UTG +2

MP: Middle Position

LJ: Lo-Jack

HJ: Hi-Jack

CO: Cut-Off

D: Dealer (Button)

SB: Small Blind

BB: Big Blind

#7. Player profiles (nit, aggro, passive, wide, etc.)

As soon as you start playing with friends, you'll notice that there are many different types of poker player. The one who never lets go of a draw, the one who waits hours before playing a hand, the one who runs on ego.

In general, player types are divided into two categories: tight and loose.

The tight player selects their starting hands meticulously, is able to fold to wait for the right cards and doesn't take risks with small pairs or matching connectors unless they have good odds.

On the contrary, the wide player likes to get in on a lot of action, and doesn't really take into account the strength of their hand, confident in the fact that they can hit a big game with any cards. In general, they play the opponent more than their own cards, and will have an annoying tendency to want to pay for all their draws. 

In addition to this tight/loose separation, we often separate player types according to another criterion: whether they are aggressive or passive.

Aggressive players tend to bet a lot, both preflop and postflop, play their draws aggressively, bluff a lot and value their big hands.

Passive players don't often raise, contenting themselves with calling to avoid taking risks. When they do hit, they underplay their hands so as not to scare off their opponents. They often believe that other players may have a better game than they do, and rarely make the decision to try a bluff.

While these profiles are sometimes described by nice little nicknames like the nit, the calling station or the maniac, Phil Hellmuth has tried to bring the different player profiles closer together by comparing them to animals:

 

Tight-passive: the mouse

The mouse only plays when it's got game. So it's very easy to read.

Large-passive: the elephant

The elephant is considered a calling station, i.e., it will call all the way to the end of the world with all its draws, which it will play passively. So, very difficult to bluff.

Tight-aggressive: the lion

The lion is the winning player par excellence. They play few hands, but aggressively. They know how to seize the right opportunities to place bluffs at the right moment, and aren't afraid to fold a hand when they feel beaten by a tighter player.

Large-aggressive: the jackal

The jackal is clearly the most difficult player to play. They don't need to have a game to put you under constant pressure, they get in a lot of shots and always think they can make their opponents fold, no matter the risk.

#8. Hand selection

When you first discovered poker, you probably thought that any hand could win. You may even have wondered why some players throw away their hand before seeing the flop cards?

And yet, hand selection is crucial at poker if you want to win money.

Why choose the right starting hands?

There are 169 possible starting hands at poker :

78 mismatched card combinations of different values (such as [A♦️] [K♣️])

78 combinations of matching cards of different values (such as [J♥️] [6♥️])

13 card combinations of identical value (such as [Q♠️] [Q♣️])

Of course, you've probably already won a move with 8-4 in hand by finding an 8-4-2 flop against a player with a pair of queens in hand. But entering shots with such mediocre hands won't benefit you in the long run. You're statistically going to lose money playing what's commonly known as trash.

Here's an overview of what you can receive as starting hands (s = suited; o = offsuit):

 

Premiums: AA, KK, QQ, JJ, AKs

Very good hands: AKo, TT, AQs, AQo, AJs

Average pairs: 99, 88, 77

Broadways: KQs, KJs, KQo, QJs

Matching connectors: T9s, 98s, 87s, 65s, etc.

Small pairs: 66, 55, 44, 33, 22

Matching one-gapers: QTs, J9s, T8s, etc.

...

Trash: 94o, 83o, 72o, etc.

 

Depending on your position, you'll need to narrow down the range of hands that are potentially workable and be more selective. UTG, raise premiums, very good hands and average pairs, but write off the rest.

In late position, you'll be able to open the game and raise with more marginal hands because you're more likely to have the position and have fewer players to beat.

Some hands will also perform better in a pot with many players, such as matched connectors, where you'll be able to see straight away if you've flopped a big draw and can stay in to win a big pot.

Similarly, you'll need a lot of players in the hand, and possibly a lot to win, to consider calling with small pair in the hope of finding your three of a kind on the flop and taking a big pot.

Choose your starting hands well, and you'll have much easier decisions for the rest of the game.

#9. Managing bad beats and reducing tilt

If you've ever played at poker, you've probably experienced what's traditionally known as a bad beat - a shot on which you were the favorite and ended up losing. It's hard to live with, it's sometimes cruel, but it's also something you have to learn to accept in order to become a better player.

Accepting the bad beat means first of all accepting that poker is not a game like chess, where the best player wins every move. If you have an 80% chance of winning a move, statistically you're going to lose it 1 time out of 5. Your brain ignores all the times you've won that move and highlights the time you lost it.

Think long term, i.e., that shot you just lost, if it happens 100 times, you'll win 80 times, so it's very profitable. Above all, you can't change anything that's just happened. Don't dwell on your bad luck, and don't be enraged by your opponent putting away the chips you should have. Move on to the next shot.

The important thing is to have made the right decision and gathered information. If you're not eliminated from the tournament on this stroke of luck, don't forget that your opponent is still at the table, and you'll probably have other opportunities to grab chips from them. Your chips aren't lost forever, they're still in circulation.    

If you're feeling affected by a bad shot, don't hesitate to get away from the table for a while, take a break, listen to music. Anything that might calm you down is beneficial at that moment. There's nothing worse than thinking about what would have happened if... It's in the past and there's nothing you can do to change it. What matters is that next time you'll make the same decision, and the result may be different.

Revel in other players' mistakes. Rather than getting angry at the player who called you with a belly flush draw and found one of their 4 outs to beat your flopped max three-of-a-kind, remember that it's thanks to other people's mistakes that you win chips in poker. You may regret that the player in question called and ask: "Why did you call? You should have folded when I bet!", but the truth is that you pushed him to make a mistake, and that's one of the goals of a good poker player.

Be patient. Even if it's sometimes difficult to deal with when it happens, bad luck will stay with you for the rest of your playing career at poker, so be mentally stronger than the rest, and just accept that luck wasn't on your side on this tournament, and that it will be with you on the next one.

Don't give in to tilt. Tilt is a feeling to be avoided at the poker table. It's often triggered by a series of bad moves. Losing shots that send you into a tailspin, and cause you to forget all your pre-tournament resolutions. If you feel you're not in your right frame of mind and you start raising with marginal hands to "make up for it", stop immediately if you're at a cash-game table, and calm down if you're at a tournament. Nothing good can happen when you're in this tilted state, and it's better to miss a few hands and take a breather outside the casino than to keep losing hand after losing hand because you're making one misjudgement after another.

#10. Showing your hand to your opponents... or not

During your first home games with your friends, you probably had fun revealing your hand even though your opponents had just folded. It's normal, when you're just starting out, you want to mock your opponents, have fun playing and learn together by debriefing your moves after you've played them.

Be careful not to repeat this on your first live tournaments!

Although you may be tempted to show your hands after a nice bluff, think for a few seconds before doing so. Showing your hand when your opponent hasn't paid your bet gives them free information. They'll know what you've got without having paid the price, and can put this information to good use later in the game.

Some good reasons to show your hand:

 

  • Because it's fun to show that you've just bluffed with a bad hand.
  • To give the impression that you're playing very tightly by revealing a big game. If you raise several times in a row, for example.
  • To make yourself look good at the table. "See, I didn't bluff you!"
  • To rattle your opponents. An opponent may brood over a fold if they know you bluffed them earlier in the game.

 

Some good reasons NOT to show your hand:

 

  • Good players will draw information from the way you played the hand.
  • You'll become a target for good players who will analyze your next moves more easily.
  • You give yourself a bad name at the table. We don't like arrogant players in general.

 

Don't forget that the best players are always very attentive at the table and will take advantage of any information you give them to learn more about you. Stay as mysterious as possible at first, don't reveal your cards too quickly so as not to become a target for the winning players, and protect the information you're not obliged to pass on.

Some clever players encourage you to reveal one of your two cards in No Limit Hold'em after a hand. But be careful! Although it's always fun to try and disrupt a player's analysis by turning over the less significant of your two cards, they could also come across a card that gives them a lot of information.

Example: Imagine you place an over-raise preflop with [A♣️] [4♣️] in your hand. Your opponent, who thinks you're tight, quickly discards their hand. Do you want them to reveal a 4 by choosing to turn over one of your 2 cards? That may be the goal, but beware of this kind of maneuver for the rest of the game. Be aware of what you're doing when you offer to turn over one of your cards. You always have more reason to be cautious about the information you offer your opponents, and wait until you've made a bit of progress before trying this kind of thing at the table.