Antonio “The Magician” Esfandiari overcame a highly competitive final table to win the title and $870,124 in the WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic.

This was Esfandiari’s second WPT title after previously winning the L A Poker Classic back in 2004 for $1,399,135. That was the year when he also won $184,860 and his first WSOP bracelet in the $2,000 Pot Limit Hold Em event. In fact 2004 was the last time Esfandiari had won a major title despite a series of six figure cashes most notably at EPT Monte Carlo in 2008 and his 24^th place at the WSOP Main Event in 2009.

Incredibly out of the 438 players who chipped in with $10,300 to play in the event - 100 of them were guaranteed to take home some money. This meant that although 100 players were relatively happy, the final table pay-outs were considerably lower for those using the betfair poker sign up bonus than in previous years. 

It was a stellar final table with Andrew Robl, Vanessa Rousso, John Racener, Kirk Morrison and Ted Lawson all intent on stopping The Magician from weaving his magic.

It seemed for a long time that Vanessa Rousso was going to become the first ever female winner of a WPT event and she was the chip leader entering the final table. Although she eliminated Ted Lawson in only the 2^nd hand of final table play we will have to wait until a female gets her hands on the trophy as she was eliminated  in 3^rd place for a $358,964 consolation.

Those over at www.betfairpoker.com note that this left a rather unique heads up encounter between poker stable mates and good friends Antonio Esfandiari and Andrew Robl. The Magician calling down Robl’s QT shove with KJ to ship him his 2^nd WPT title.

You have been spending some time reviewing your play while using the betfair code bonus. Your mind is full of new ideas and concepts and all of the mistakes that you have just exposed have been thrown into the trash. You are primed to take over the poker world and log on and fire up 6 tables of 200nl cash games. For the first few hours everything is going well. You are on top of your game and can feel that it is going to be a winning session.

You are on the button and three people limp into the pot. You look down at AhQh and make a raise to $14 to try and take the dead money in the pot or thin the field a little. It works when a player calls in the small blind. The flop is Qh4h6d. The monotone crimson colour a precursor to blood about to be spilt. The small blind leads out with a bet of $30 and you raise to $90 and he shoves for $200 and you make the call. Hero: AhQh Villain: 6s4c.

The villain somehow managed to find a call in a raised pot, from out of position with 6s4c. You are furious but still have your flush outs. Well for one second anyway because the turn is the 4d and you are drawing dead and have lost $200. 

You carry on playing while using the betfair poker welcome bonusbut subliminally you cannot keep your eyes off this particular villain and his avatar. If you do not realise what is happening and adjust pretty quickly you could lose far more than the first $200 that you lost. 

Stop staring at that Avatar! Stop planning to get even! Instead, create a plan to exploit his obvious weakness. 

Do not suffer from animosity TILT.  

When it comes to winning No Limit Texas Hold Em tournaments one of the first names that spring to mind will be Phil Hellmuth Jr. Hellmuth has won more WSOP bracelets than any other human being on the planet (11) but does this make him the greatest player on the planet?

He will tell you that it does. But it is this modesty that has been marketed so cleverly that makes him the media phenom that he is today. 

Dusty “Leatherass” Schmidt and Paul Christopher Hoppe have not won a single WSOP bracelet between them but that has not stopped the two of them releasing a book entitled “Don’t listen to Phil Hellmuth - Correcting the 50 Worst Pieces of Poker Advice You’ve Ever Heard.”

Those over at betfairpoker.com will tell you that both players have made their fortunes playing the online cash games and not through tournaments - so it would appear that at first glance the comparison to advice offered by Hellmuth is flawed. Then you read the small print on the cover of the book.

Or a host of other world champs, TV commentators and other self proclaimed experts.

So what we really have here is a very clever marketing trick to draw interest into the book by using the name of one of the biggest stars in world poker. But if you put that aside and flip over the pages and start reading then you start to understand what Schmidt and Hopper are trying to achieve.

While using the poker sign up bonus, they are addressing the fact that the game of poker has evolved and has changed. They have drawn on 50 of the worst pieces of historical advice they could unearth and have challenged the validity of it in today’s game and have suggested their own more up to date advice.

It just so happens that a lot of the quotes come from the mouth of the Poker Brat himself.

When learning the game of poker where do you start? Unless your room mate is either Phil Ivey or Tom Dwan, starting hand charts are not a bad starting point for anyone.

betfair poker pundits note that starting hand charts are often in the format of a 13 x 13 matrix containing all the possible starting hand combinations available in Texas Holdem. Each chart will represent a position at the poker table. Let’s take a 6 max cash game as an example. You would have separate charts for Under the Gun, Lo-Jack, Hi-Jack, Cut Off, Button, Small Blind and Big Blind.

Each chart will advise you which starting hands to open up the action with should the action be folded around to you in the first place. You can also create hand charts to help you understand which hand ranges you will cold call or three-bet a raiser with as well.

Just remember the most important point - the starting hand charts are guides. Poker is a dynamic and constantly evolving game. Your starting hand requirements will change dependant on your opponents tendencies.  Let’s imagine that you are opening up from the button with 37% of starting hands yet the players in the blinds are folding 85% of the time. With this dynamic it would make more sense to open a much wider range than 37%.

Those looking at the betfair bonus will tell you that it is easier to climb over a wall if your mate is going to give you a leg up. Starting hand charts are a leg up in the game of poker - so use them. 

Just google the words poker starting hand charts and you will find plenty of people waiting to give you a leg up over that wall.

When you sit down in poker cash games you have the freedom to buy into the game for as much or as little as you feel like, as long as it is within the parameters set by the poker site or the card room you are playing in. Players usually have the choice of buying in for as little as 20 big blinds and as much as 250 big blinds but how much should you buy-in for?

If you are a winning player then ideally you should be looking to buy in for the maximum amount permitted by the table rules so that you are maximising your potential profits. By buying in for the full amount you will be able to use your entire arsenal of moves and plays to extract money from your opponents but if you buy in short your choices will be restricted.

That is not to say that buying in short should never be done, especially as a number of players make a good living from buying in short and basically playing a push or fold strategy. Whilst this particular short-stack strategy is not ideal and some online poker sites are altering their cash game table amounts to prevent these players from ruining the flow of a “normal” game, buying in for less than the maximum does have some merits.

For example, if you are taking a shot at higher stakes than you are used to playing then it is sometimes recommended to buy in for around half of the maximum so that you have more straight forward decisions to make, both post flop and preflop. Also, you could buy-in for a lesser amount if you feel you are being outclassed at the table. You can see this in action if you ever watch the popular poker TV show, High Stakes Poker, as none of the players takin part ever buy-in for the same amount as Phil Ivey or Tom Dwan, the best two players on the show.

So as a general rule and blanket statement you should always be looking to buy in for the maximum allowed and you should always ensure that you have the weakest player at the table covered in terms of chips in front of you. The only times you should buy in short is if you are playing a new poker variant, have moved up in stakes or are playing against players who are better than you.

One of the most under-rated and under used tools a poker player play has is the ability to take notes on their opponents. In a time where many people who play poker online whilst using poker tracking software or are playing dozens of tables at once, it seems note taking is no longer fashionable to do but taking them can help you win extra money and save you a fortune in the right circumstances.

Whilst I am an advocate for poker software and even use some of it myself it does fall short on the minor details. Although it has a plethora of information stored in it, such as how often Player A will three-bet after an early position player has made a raise it cannot tell you certain characteristics about the said player.

Taking notes on what you see at the table can fill in certain blanks that tracking software leave, such as does a player join a table and instant play poker rather than wait for the big blind to arrive, which is a great tell the player is weak or recreational. Taking notes also allows you to log any mistakes a player may have made or any traits and trends they have in their game. Software may tell you that one of your opponents at a short handed cash game is playing 24% of their hands, raising 20% of them and has an aggression factor of 2.5 but it cannot and will not tell you that he is prone to go on tilt, chases straight draws without the correct odds and likes to isolate limpers.

The key to taking notes is to keep them brief and to the point. There is no point writing a three paragraph essay on something you have seen otherwise when you come to use the note you will not be able to read it all and act in time. Create you own version of short-hand, something that is easy to read at a glance but still has all the information you need. It does not need to be flamboyant, just abbreviate some words and you will; be fine!

It is important when taking notes that you do not fill in the available space with standard plays. Think about what you have seen, is it really note-worthy? You only want solid, concrete information in there to refer back to later. Finally, make sure you always make a secondary note of the date and stakes being played as players do improve and what was valid at the $0.25/$0.50 stakes six months ago will probably not be the case now at $1/$2. Remember, incorrect information is worse than having none at all.

One of the most common mistakes made by players learning Omaha poker, especially if they come from a Hold'em background, is being tempted to play far too many hands preflop. Each four-card starting hand looks like it has many possibilities to make a variety of hands but in truth you should still play relatively tight, especially in early position.

Omaha is a game that runs far larger than Hold'em in all respects, including the hands that are most profitable. In Hold'em two-pairs and sets are usually strong enough hands to win the pot at showdown but in Omaha it is straights, flushes and full houses that will make you the most money. With this in mind it makes perfect sense to play starting hands that allow you to improve to these types of hands.

Whilst pairs are good to have in Omaha, you really need another draw to go with them. A hand such as AcQcQd6s may look strong but it has many pitfalls. Hitting a bare ace will almost never be enough to get to showdown and flopping a set will often put a possible straight draw on the board. The 6s is a dangler, in that is in almost useless as you cannot make a straight with it and unless the flop comes AdAs6d or similar, you are never going to be in good shape once the big bets start coming in.

Compare the above hand to a “rundown” one such as Td9d8s7s and it is easy to think of flops that really improve your hand.  Flopping two pairs with a hand like this will always mean you have a redraw to a straight, often the nuts. For example, say the flop comes down Kd8c7h then you will still have good equity against someone who has played KKxx.

Although AcAcQd6s is a slight favourite against Td9d8s7s it performs very poorly against an overpair such as kings or aces but the rundown hand actually performs well against overpairs, something weak players frequently play, especially in the lower realms of online poker. You need to remember that you are not playing a hand that is good preflop or one that can hit flops hard, you are looking to play hands that you are happy to to take to showdown with, and this means hands that can make big hands and the nuts.

Playing from the small and big blind is one of the most difficult skills to master in any form of online Texas Holdem, particularly in cash games. The fact you will almost always have a positional disadvantage over your opponents and you having to pay a forced bet before receiving your hole cards means even the very best players will lose money from the blinds. With this in mind you should be trying to minimise your losses from the blinds, not maximise your profits.

 

One of the biggest mistakes poker players make is to play too many hands from the blinds and in particular hands that are easily dominated such as King-ten and raggedy aces. Players rightly think about the increased pot odds they are being offered but fail to realise their implied pot odd are less and their reverse implied pot odds are simply dreadful. Imagine you call a raise in the big blind with Ace-six of diamond and the flop comes down Ac-Td-3s, you are in a tricky spot. Is your ace with an almost non-existant kicker ever good here? It could cost you a lot of money to find out.

 

If you play poker online then you will play out of the blinds more often than a live game due to the speed of the action and the fact you can play more than one table at once. What hands you play from the blinds should be dependant on the type of players in the hand and their position in relation to the button.

 

When a tight player opens with a raise from early position you should be folding almost every single hand when in the blinds and the hands that you should be playing should almost always be re-raised to retake the initiative in the hand. Aces and kings are instant re-raises but you could make the call with most pairs, hoping to flop a set. Suited connectors should usually be folded except when there has been at least one other caller before you. Fold ace-rag and king-rag as quickly as you were dealt them.

 

If a loose player has raised or the raiser is weak then you can open your range a little more. You should still fold the majority of aces and kings but you can now profitably call with all pairs and you should be three-betting tens or higher. If the raise comes from one of the late positions from any player type you should be willing to re-raise with pairs and suited connectors to take the pot down preflop, especially if the player in question is a habitual blind stealer.

 

Finally, if there is no raise before you you can raise from the blinds and hope to take the pot down preflop. This is especially true if the limper is weak and has folded to raises from other players in the past. If the action folds around to you in the small blind you should rarely flat call despite being offered 3/1 odds on doing so. This is because even the weakest of players will often raise a limper in the small blind, leaving you with a decision to call a large bet out of position or fold after investing more into the pot. Basically you should be folding and raising from the small blind.

One of the most exciting situations in poker is when you hit a flush or straight as you are generally a lock to win a substantial pot. However, many players struggle with how they should play their draws, that is before they have actually hit their flush or straight but this article should give you some insight of how to do so.

There is no correct or incorrect way to play a draw of any type although you should mix up your game to keep your opponents guessing. If you always play a draw in the exact same way then you make yourself easy to read and you will not be paid off as much as you would be if you altered your approach to chasing draws.

If you play online Texas Holdem, especially at the lower levels, then you will not need to mix up your play as often as you would think as your opponents generally pay less attention compared to players in a live environment. This is because online players often play more than one table at a time and have a number of distractions around them.

One common approach is to play draws passively so that you lose the minimum amount of money if you miss your draw. As a rule it is the weaker players who do this as you should be thinking of maximising the money you can win, not minimising the money you could lose. If you continually play Texas Holdem passively you will not progress very far.

The main drawbacks to playing draws passively is that they become very easy to spot and you do not win as much money when you make your flush or straight. Imagine you have AsQs on a board reading 6s5sTc giving you a draw to the nut straight and your opponent bets and you flat call. The turn is a 2d, your opponent bets and you call again. The river is a Js giving you the nut flush. Now you opponent checks, if you bet then you are basically telling him you have the flush and he is unlikely to pay you off.

However, if you used some aggression in the hand you may get your opponent to pay you off handsomely despite the flush coming in. You could flat call on the flop as in the passive example but instead of just calling on the turn you could make a raise. Your opponents will generally expect you to play a draw passively so if they call your turn raise and the flush comes in on the river they are less likely to give you credit for it and could make a bet, or better still a raise, with a much weaker second-best hand to your nut flush.

There are situations where aggressive plays are better than passive ones and vice versa, it is all player dependent. It is your job as a poker player to make the right play for the right opponent so that you maximise your profits in the long term.

If you play poker online regularly then you will be more than aware of the following common spots that seem to crop up each and every session you play. Knowing how to deal with these common problems is vital to progressing as a player and will make your time at the tables much less stressful.

A common scenario you will face is being check-raised on the river. A check-raise is generally a sign of great strength and this is particularly true when it happens on the river and especially so at the lower stakes games. You will often be getting great odds to call but doing so all of the time is a big leak. Saw you hold a hand such as Ac4c and get check-raised on the river of a board reading Ad4dQs6hJs then against most opponents your two-pair is beaten. You need to make an assessment of your hand strength in relation to the board and your opponents range of hands.

Many players struggle with what to do when they raise preflop with Ace-King. They tend to automatically continuation bet regardless of the flop texture, which potentially gets them in all sorts of trouble. On a flop such as 7-7-3 you should be inclined to check when checked to as you will only ever fold out worse hands and be called by hands that beat you. Also, good poker players know that you are unlikely to have hit this type of dry board hard and will check-raise bluff you enough to make continuation betting here very unprofitable. Likewise, checking behind will often mean you have six clean outs for the win and you may even be in good shape against a hand such as Ace-Queen of King-Queen that would not call a flop bet but would almost certainly call if you hit an ace or king on a later street.

Finally, scary turn cards are the bane of most players' lives! We have all been in a situation where we have raised preflop with King-Queen and received one caller. The flop comes down Qd7d6h and we make a standard continuation bet and are called. Now the turn brings the Ad, putting an overcard out there and completing a potential flush. What do we do? This is where notes on players become very handy indeed, does your opponent slow play flush draws or are they aggressive enough that they play them fast and raise with them? Does an Ace fit how he has played the hand so far? Remember that good players will use scare cards to put you under the maximum pressure so you need to be prepared to call and re-evaluate on the river where you will have a better idea if his betting action are consistent with a flush or an ace.