Final week of the regular season, time to be careful, as it’s difficult to assess whom might be resting.

ARIZONA - Our top pick on the board.  They have match-ups that can be exploited, and will want to go into the playoffs on a winning note.  Seattle may come in without much incentive, as they may have had their “playoff” game in last weeks home finale.  Arizona by ten.

HOUSTON - Texans playing at a high level at home this year, and our bet is they come into this one with a high amount of intensity.  Houston does have key matchups over the top they should be able to exploit.  Texans by seven.

MIAMI is playing with a lot of enthusiasm, and if they win they’re in the post season.  The Jets look like they’ve lost their mojo.  This one should be a hell of a game, and there is solid value with NY on the moneyline.

One of the key leaks in weak players games is that they bluff for very obvious reasons.

The most obvious of these is desperation, usually in situations where their hand has missed and the only real option that they have to win the hand is to bluff - regardless of what signals of strength have been given off by their opponents.

This kind bluff nearly always occurs on the river, when they have missed their hand, and are basically thinking along the lines of ‘Well I’m at the river, my hand can’t win at showdown, I was hoping to hit my gutshot/flushdraw/straightdraw/over cards/whatever, and now my only option left is to bluff’. This is not their only option of course, as they could fold or check fold, saving themselves a great deal of money over the long run.

The main reason for these situations occurring with bad players is they usually have not planned the hand in advance. They have fired on flop and turn, built a large pot out of position, and are now left in a horrible spot on the river. If you can plan your actions for multiple streets you can avoid ever getting in these situations.

Once you have taken these sorts of plays out of yoru game, you can start taking advantage of other players making them. These bluffs are nearly always the same, in that the line taken by the player makes no sense considering their normal style of play. Much of this is up to the read on the player, but typically they happen on boards that just don’t fit the story that you are being told.

A typical example of this is when an opponent raises pre flop, you defend on the button with a suited connector, flop middle pair and call a flop bet. Both players check a low turn, and then the pre flop raiser fires out a big bet on another low river. This nearly always indicates a desperate attempt to win with their two high cards (God forbid a bad player should ever lose a pot where they started with ace king), as they would have usually bet the turn with any hand that was made.

Bad players actually bluff a great deal, they just tend to do it out of frustration and desperation more than for reasons to do with a certain player or a certain board. Always remember that bluffs have to form a coherent story that you are telling about your hand, and vice versa, and if you ever see that story start to breakdown, it is probably worth your while making a few thin calls.

Related Readings

Bluffing - How to pull the trigger - Marcus Bateman
Beating weak poker games - Marcus Bateman
Bluffing in PLO - Marcus Bateman

Besides “Who do you like,” the question I hear the most is “How do you bet?” There’s no easy answer, but I’ll give it a shot.

First of all, handicapping is easy; betting is hard. But beyond the actual execution of bets, there are many other factors going on that need to be understood if you are going to have a chance.

I want to make money. Sometimes that means winning more than losing, sometimes that means walking away when I’m ahead and sometimes that means walking away when I am behind. My goal is not to break the bank, to be carried out on the shoulders of my fellow bettors or have the simulcast site ban me because I am winning too much. For every anecdote about someone that went to the track with a small bankroll and hit it big, there are far more tales of bettors not picking up their stack and walking away ahead.

So I think it makes sense to ask yourself WHY you bet. But you also have to take a hard look at yourself and examine whether your behavior is in line with your goal. I have a friend that I am convinced bets in a way that increases the chance that the next race could enter his Tale of Woe Hall of Fame. He has every imaginable bad beat story. In fact, if I wasn’t with him and saw first-hand how no lead was safe or how the wire always seems to come up before his rallying horse can get there, I wouldn’t believe it myself. I once told him that “Doctor Melfi would say that you want to lose.”

If your goal is to have fun, make sure that you have fun. If your goal is to have a life-changing score, make sure that you fall out of love with odds-on favorites. If your goal is to go to a wagering site and enjoy talking to your buddies, bet in a way that will enable you to do that for many years.

Here’s one you see all the time. Most horseplayers I know would consider themselves “Old School.” In between races you’ll hear discussions about Terrell Owens and his excessive end-zone celebrations. Yet, the same horseplayer will overreact to wins and losses to their own detriment.

The “Old School” horseplayer will have a nice score and then start betting way beyond their comfort zone. They’ll lose focus from winning and start making money management mistakes. Without realizing it, they are behaving like T.O., except his celebrations seem to make him more money while the “Old School” horseplayer is wasting precious bankroll dollars. The advice of football coaches to act like you’ve done it before after you score a touchdown, can be applied when you have a big score. Act like it’s no big deal and you might get another one.

Do you keep accurate records? Some account wagering companies do a good job of breaking down your betting records by track or wager type. If they do, use it. You need to know what your strengths and weaknesses are and record-keeping can go a long way to get you to divert your focus toward more profitable situations.

I was recently sitting say anything in the event that the players didn’t catch it. After another minute of consideration the opponent called the $500, and after a weak bet from Tim on the river, went all in to take the pot down. Tim was fuming and proceeded to at a 5/10 live game in Las Vegas. For the sake of this story, I have given some of the players fake names to make it easier to understand. Player Tim had gotten into a bit of an argument with Jill and her boyfriend about the mandatory straddle that was in place when the couple sat down. Jill didn’t want to do it, but the couple wouldn’t take the open seats on the other tables. A few hands later Tim was involved in a hand with someone across the table. Tim was a pretty aggressive player who was known to raise with any two cards. Preflop Tim raised $50. He had one caller to the flop. The flop came out 6s 7d 6h. Tim bets $100 and his opponent says, “You don’t want to lose all of your money on this hand. I call.” The turn comes a 7c. Tim bets $500, and his opponent goes into the think tank. It seemed pretty obvious to me that Tim was bluffing, but his opponent was really struggling with the decision. He began to run through the hand out loud and then stated, “I shouldn’t call this because I really think you have a 7.” From this Jill, who was not in the hand said, “Well there is only one way to find out.” EEeeeks! I immediately knew her comment was out of line, but didn’t chew Jill out for opening her mouth and influencing his opponent in the hand.

Of course, Tim was right to be upset because in the end Tim’s opponent confessed that he was thinking of folding on the turn. Jill’s comment influenced Tim’s opponent to make a decision that he probably wouldn’t have made on his own. Jill’s comment also influenced Tim’s play. Had Jill not said anything, Tim could have made a better betting decision on the river. However, the comment put Tim on tilt and caused him to be distracted from the hand. The moral of the story is: If you are not in a hand and there is one in progress don’t say anything regarding the hand or its players until the hand is over. I regularly run into the situation where a flop comes out 6 6 2 and someone says, “Oh man! I threw away a 6.” As disappointing as that might be, it is not ok to announce this to the table because it inhibits an involved player’s ability to bluff at the pot. It could also induce someone to call a bet, knowing the chances of a 6 in hand is slimmer, though in actuality they are calling into a set. For this reason, it is bad etiquette to comment on a hand when you are not involved and/or if it is a multi-way pot. When the chips are being pushed to the winner, it might be ok to open up about your hand or add commentary. Just remember that comments that you make about a hand might influence someone’s decision in the end, and you wouldn’t like it if you lost money because another player influenced your opponent.

Small ball poker is a method that has been made famous by poker pro Daniel Negreanu. I first became interested in the theory because I was having trouble with managing my chip stack in tournaments. In the beginning rounds I would bet my big hands substantially, and somehow people would still draw out on me. In the later rounds, I was having trouble compensating for the growing blinds, and I would tighten up the range of hands I would play when I was supposed to be opening them up. The problem for me was not that I didn’t realize what I was doing wrong, but it was hard to come up with a way to change my habits and implement a new playing style for tournaments. The small ball method seemed to be a great way to alleviate my problems without totally changing my playing style.

Small ball poker is designed to minimize your investments while still putting pressure on your opponent. It allows a player to have better control of the pot and the pot size, as to not risk as much of their chip stack and be pot committed. The general rule of thumb is to raise 2.5 times the big blind. The trick is to keep it consistent so that your opponent can never put you on a hand. In tournaments, the raise of 2.5 times the BB is going to give you the same results as raising 3 times the BB. Why not save some chips when you are going to be called anyway? This theory carries over to post flop play as well. There are often situations where one has to put in a bet to find out where their opponent is in the hand. Most of the time, the tendency is to put in a sizable bet that gathers information and leaves your opponent to make a decision on whether to invest more into the pot. This often leads to bigger bets than what is needed. Small ball teaches a player to minimize the bet in a way that you can gather the same amount of information without investing as much. Overall, small ball allows you to better control the pot.

Since tournament play requires a player to maintain and grow their chip stack, any bet is viewed as a threat. This is the reason why small ball works so well. A minimal bet to you, is still considered a risk to another player. As long as you don’t price someone in, these minimal bets will allow you to accomplish the same thing as large bets will.

In Part II, I will share with you my experience of implementing this small ball tactic in tournament play.