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Since many people consider Texas Hold’em to be the only form of poker out there these days, they often look at pocket aces as the holy grail of poker.  But the truth is that pocket aces aren’t always so valuable once you get them outside of Hold’em.  With that in mind, here is a look at how pocket aces play out in different variations of poker.

Texas Hold’em

As mentioned before, pocket aces are the best possible hole cards you can get in Texas Hold’em.  There is no stronger card combination you can be dealt before the flop!  Whenever you get pocket aces in Texas Hold’em, you should be trying to get as much money in the pot as possible.   

Omaha

When you move from Texas Hold’em to Omaha, the power of pocket aces diminishes somewhat.  That’s because players receive 4 hole cards in this poker game and, because of this, there are more opportunities for straights, flushes, and sets.  Still, pocket aces are valuable in Omaha as they can help players form powerful straights and flushes.

Razz

Since the point of Razz is to form the worst hand possible, pocket aces won’t help your cause much.  If you happen to receive pocket aces in Razz then your best bet for winning is to do a naked bluff.  But this move is quite risky so you’re definitely better off just folding.

Seven Card Stud

Pocket aces are very valuable in Seven Card Stud because pairs and two pairs often win hands in this game.  If you are able to get another pair through your upcards, in addition to pocket aces, then you will probably be in command of the hand!

“Outs” in poker are pretty easy to understand since they are simply the amount of cards left in the deck that can give you a made hand.  Calculating them is pretty easy too since you only really need to look at which card values or suits will give you that hand – i.e. if you are behind in a hand while holding two kings, and none are on the board then you would have two outs left. 

However, Omaha outs are a little tougher to speculate on since everyone has four hole cards instead of two.  Here is a look at different Omaha outs and how to calculate them.

Normal Outs

As explained before, outs are simply the cards that will give you a hand which is highly likely to win.  So if you have two suited card and there are two suited cards on the board, then you would have 9 outs left since there are 13 cards of every suit.

Anti-Outs

Unfortunately, there are some outs in poker which will help your opponents more than they will help you.  These are called anti-outs since they only appear to be an out for you.  A good example of this is if you had two jacks and needed one more for a set, it could actually help an opponent make a flush (if it’s of a certain suit).  So this is really an anti-out.

True Outs

After you’ve tallied up your regular outs and anti-outs, it is time to figure out your true outs.  The good news is that figuring out true outs is really easy since you only need to subtract anti-outs from your regular outs.  So, in the previous example, if you subtracted one jack of a certain suit then you would be left with one true out.

People have made a big deal about Tom Dwan in recent weeks due to him being signed by Full Tilt Poker, and his latest Million Dollar Challenge.  Already know for his online challenges, Dwan has taken his act to London for a set of live challenges that will add up to a million dollars when everything is said and done.  The first part of the London challenge had Dwan taking on Marcello Marigliano.

Both players bought into the contest for $250,000, and the rules were that nobody left until either 500 hands had been played or one of the players was broke.  But we didn’t have to worry about the going broke part since this was largely a back and forth matchup.  On paper, Tom Dwan was the more aggressive player since he raised on the button 84% of the time and won 55% of the hands.

However, it was Marigliano who won the heads-up contest after ending up with $272,500 compared to Dwan’s $227.500.   In the aftermath of his big win, Marigliano summed up his feelings by saying, “In the end, I won a small amount, but I’m happy though as I won with bluffs.  He raised a lot pre-flop and you have to play tight, but I made some good moves, and I’m happy I proved I can play with Tom.”

The victory for Marcello is surprising since he isn’t nearly as well known as Dwan is.  However, he definitely did prove that he is capable of playing with Dwan – and even beating him!  With the Marigliano matchup now behind him, Dwan is now on to play llari Sahamies.  After he plays Sahamies, Dwan will face Sammy “Any Two” George in the final part of the challenge.

Many women in the poker community were outraged after Abraham Korotki took down a ladies-only poker tournament in Atlantic City, New Jersey.  After the event, Korotki had little to say in his defense besides that he wanted to find somewhere to practice for future poker tourneys.  But Korotki did more than practice in September as he was able to win the tournament and the money that went along with it. 

It hasn’t even been more than a few months now since Korotki’s win that we’re seeing another man win a female poker tourney.  This time it is Greg Sessler who was able to defeat 95 other players at a WSOP Circuit Event en route to his “big victory”.

Sessler entered a $340 “Lake Tahoe Ladies Championship” tourney, and was able to walk away with the win as well as $9,900 after everything was said and done.  And plenty was said during the tourney too since other men decided to enter this supposedly women’s-only event.  The crowd started cheering every time a male player was eliminated from the tournament – little did they know though that a man would be the one to win it.

After taking down the women’s championship in Lake Tahoe, Sessler commented afterwards by saying that he only wanted to find a place to play poker during his day off.  Conveniently, it just happened to be a ladies-only event that he decided to use as his place to play poker.

The WSOP wanted to clear themselves of the mess created by the win and issued a statement saying, “The WSOP isn’t a political organization and can’t be expected to get involved in debates about sexism, discrimination, or other polarizing issues which may be applicable to poker tournaments.”

In all the different variations of poker, there is perhaps none that involve as much math and statistics as Limit Hold’em does.  With Limit Hold’em, people can make most of their plays based on statistical percentages and be a profitable player over the long run (in theory).  There are plenty of poker bots and little experiments such as the machine vs. man challenges that support this line of thinking too.

In fact, these poker bots have fueled the software industry which is constantly churning out new products designed to give people an advantage over their opponents.  There are so many products available that many people are starting to wonder if Limit Hold’em is a solved game.

After all, poker software can pretty much tell players everything they need to know from how many times an opponent sees the flop to how likely they are to call on the river.  It’s almost unfair how much a person can gain over their opponents by using poker software.  I guess that’s why so many online poker players are buying up this software so they don’t get left behind.

But just because there is detailed poker software which helps people out with all these stats doesn’t mean Limit Hold’em is a solved game.  There are just too many other things you need to keep track of to call Limit solved.  For one thing, the software can only put opponents on a range of cards.  Sure knowing an opponent’s range is helpful, but it’s not an exact science.

And if you can’t pin down an opponent’s cards exactly then some reading abilities do come into play.  Plus it is the player who makes all of the final decisions in online poker so the software is only an aid.  In short, people have a long way to go before they completely solve Limit Hold’em.

Most of the poker strategy we see today focuses on what to do when you’re isolated with an opponent on later streets.  And this type of strategy is great too since it’s very useful when handling these one-on-one situations.  However, there are more than enough times when you will have multiple people in the pot with you and thus must know some moves for dealing with multi-pot situations.  Here are a couple of great moves you can use when going against multiple players for a pot.

Squeeze Play

One of the best ways to take down a multi-way pot is by capitalizing on the over-aggressiveness of another player.  For instance if a very aggressive player raises in early position and the player before you calls the raise, you can then re-raise to get both of them to fold.  Of course for the squeeze play to be successful you need to be very sure that the initial raiser is holding a weak hand and hoping to steal the hand with a raise.  You’ve also got to know that the player in the middle is only calling with a mediocre hand as well.

Calling

Another great thing you can do in multi-way pots is simply call on earlier streets, then fire out a big raise later on.  What’s great about this move is that it allows you to fool your opponents into thinking you’re only calling everything they do.  Then, when all cards have been laid out, you fire out a big raise which makes your opponents question their own hands.  If you’re only holding a decent hand, this can be a great way to get others to fold even better hands.

Those who are immersed in the world of poker hotties have no doubt heard of Kara Scott.  She has burst on to the poker scene in the last couple of years with her sexy looks and solid playing skills.  And speaking of the playing skills, Scott is one of the few people to make the final 250 players in the WSOP Main Event in the last two years.  She has over $500,000 in career winnings with about $450,000 of it coming within the last year.  This is not to mention the fact that she’s also done commentary work for the European Poker Tour.

Due to her impressive resume, and great looks, Kara Scott has now been named the new hostess of High Stakes Poker.  With this announcement, all the speculation of other people being named the host will finally come to an end.  At one point, rumors were swirling around that Vanessa Rouso would be the next person to host High Stakes Poker.  Most of these unfounded rumors came from poker forums, but still they took off in a big way.  Since Kara Scott has been named the host, we now know that there is no truth to these rumors.

With Scott taking over at HSP, she’ll be teaming up with Gabe Kaplan which should be very interesting.  Kaplan and A.J. Benza were a fantastic commentary team, but the Game Show Network decided to disband the team in favor of brining in a younger, female co-host.  Long-time fans of the show are still puzzled as to why they would break up this team, but one big reason could be that GSN is looking for a more general audience.  Kara Scott could certainly bring that bigger general audience.

Since many people these days are realizing how tough it can be to make money in Texas Hold’em, the mass exodus continues towards the game of Omaha.  However, once players get to Omaha a lot of them find that they’d like to try Omaha Hi-Lo as well.  But you should never jump right into the game of Hi-Lo unprepared because there are a lot of differences between the two games.  Here are some tips to help you make the switch.

Bluffing

One of the biggest adjustments you need to make from Omaha to Omaha Hi-Lo is totally giving up the tendency to bluff on the river.  If you bluff on the river in Omaha Hi-Lo, there’s a very good chance you will get called because other players will at least think they have a chance at the low hand.  In short, avoid bluffing on the river in Hi-Lo.

Starting Hands

Omaha players often get very excited when they see a hand like A-A-K-K.  It gives them the best shot to hit a nut hand and take down the pot.  But in Omaha Hi-Lo, you want to get hands that will allow you to get both the high and low hand and scoop the entire pot.  This means you’ll want cards that are both high and low like A-A-2-3.  If you manage to get a hand like this, you’ll have a chance at getting a high and low nut draw.

Getting Quartered

Another thing to watch out for in Omaha Hi-Lo is getting quartered.  That’s because there will be times when two people will tie for the low hand and must split the bottom part of the pot.  This becomes a lot worse when a person makes a lot of raises and bets in an attempt to win the low pot.  If you’re only going for the low part of the pot, be careful because you could end up spending a lot more money than it’s worth trying to get half of the pot.

Make no mistake about it: No-Limit Hold’em is all being able to read your opponents.  That’s why so many aggressive players are able to be successful in this poker variation because they have the ability to find passive players and exploit them.  Unfortunately though, some aggressive players try to act like poker is full of passive players and use the same strategy all of the time.   And when this happens, the table will figure the overly aggressive player out and start to call everything they do.

The only way to avoid this is to switch up your style of play to keep others guessing.  If you’ve been playing aggressive and getting away with semi-bluffs while not being taken to the showdown a lot then you might want to play a little tighter.  The reason you’ll want to play tighter is because the players who still think you’re being overly aggressive will be willing to call all of your supposed semi-bluffs and second-rate hands.  When this starts to happen, you’ll be able to reap the rewards of more chips as the other players fall into your trap. 

However, you don’t want to get stuck here though since others will adjust to this too eventually.  When they do adjust to your tighter playing style, you should switch back to playing more aggressive to keep them off balance.  The key when switching styles is to read how the table perceives you at any given moment.  If the table thinks that you’re playing one way, you need to change gears and start playing the opposite way to throw them off.

Most people cut their teeth in poker through full table games.  It’s what is offered throughout most online and live poker rooms and it also helps gaming establishments bring in more money.  However, there are plenty of players who choose to step away from the norm and try their hand at shorthanded Limit Hold’em games.  Since the game is becoming more and more popular, let’s take a look at some tips for how people can improve their Limit Hold’em game.

The first thing you really need to do more of in shorthanded games is be aggressive.  The reason for this is that the blinds will come around much quicker than in full games and you need to raise and re-raise more often to take down hands.  The key is to force action with most hands that are playable.  If you don’t play aggressively in shorthanded games then you will lose money due to the blinds.

Another tip for Limit Hold’em is to open up your hand selection more.  For instance, if you only think A-10 is playable from middle position then you might need to start playing A-8 in middle position too.  Remember, there are less people at the table which also means that less premium hands will be in play too.  With this being the case, you need to be able to play a wider range of hands.

One more thing to keep in mind when playing shorthanded Limit games is that you should limp in from earlier position more often too.  Positioning on the table shortens up in shorthanded play so you’ll have more freedom to attempt to see hands with cards like K-j, J-10, etc.  Make sure to utilize these tips next time you step onto a shorthanded table.