Texas Hold’em – especially Limit Hold’em – is currently the most popular card game in the world –and perversely, the most “misleading” to novices and intermediate players. There is a misconception that the game is very simple – that one need only watch the pot to make his decisions. If it gets big enough, call and watch the cards roll out.
This is a recipe for disaster, especially for new or intermediate players who enter a game populated by seasoned players. There is a reason why inexperienced players have been called (rather unkindly) as either donkeys, muppets or fish – easy prey for the predators out there.
Consider this: you are in a ring game and you happen to be almost entirely surrounded by overly-aggressive players. You seem to have the best hand in the house and you go through rounds of betting – continuously calling and raising together with the other players. Suddenly, Mr. Super Aggressive bets almost all of his chips. What do you do? Do you play with Mr. Super Aggressive or do you fold?
The turn and the river are the make it or break it phases. At this point in the game, your bets may have already cost you a lot of your chips so you’d better make it work. Though you can still fold at these stages, you’d have invested quite a bit into the pot so it’s just natural to want to win the pot than give it up.
Continuation bets are bets made by a player as a follow up to an initial stage-setting bet. Once a player has made a pretty credible raise before the flop, for instance, he follows it up with another raise after the flop. This creates the perception that their good or excellent starting hand has just become a very good combination hand.
In the good old days before the internet, one of the most mind-boggling events would be watching a chess grandmaster playing simultaneously against any number of players. This would be an awesome sight – twenty or thirty chess boards with different people playing against a single person moving from board to board – and winning every match, too.
There can be no doubt that simultaneous chess games are being played on the internet – and the idea of “simultaneous” plays have spread into other games. Among the more popular such “multi-player” sports, however, is playing poker at multiple tables at the same time.
Many online poker players have gone into playing multiple tables – in the case of some, because it is a challenge that they can’t walk away from; in the case of many others, because it is seen as a chance to improve their win rates (and increase their bankrolls at the same time).
