Poker: The Fish- First in the Food Chain.

Becoming a better poker player comes at a price! This is the first proverb you must learn in poker, beginners comport themselves as Fish amongst Sharks. Without too much surprise, 90% of fish in poker salons get devoured by the 10% of sharks, sharks navigate tables in order to hunt out weak prey.

Type of player: Fish.
As a beginner, you are known as a fish. If you are more interested in playing than winning, you are definitely a fish. If you do not do research and try to master your game by learning the odds of each hand, you will lose. The good news is that by reading this page you will have achieved the first significant step towards victory at online poker.

However, it is not just beginners who are fish. Any player can become a fish during a specific game. The structure of tournaments is a good example of where the game changes so radically at times because of the number of players involved and the time they take to play out. If you begin to panic when your stack begins to shrink, you will involuntarily play as if you were a fish.

Characteristics of a fish:
They will chase after the pot for a lot longer than they should, they raise with hands that do not merit such action, and they count on luck to get them through, etc. the style of play typical of a fish ranges from "large-passive". A passive player lends little attention to the odds of the hands or to the comportment of the other players; they will rarely raise, but will often follow. The large-passive player has a style whereby they distance themselves from the game at all price. On the other hand, the passive style combined with the aggressive style creates a player profile that can only be described as maniacal.

In order to survive and win money, the fish should tighten his game. With experience and better understandings of the poker table, the fish can combine the tight game with the aggressive game and this is likely to be the most profitable way forward. As the table indicates, it is better to begin games by playing tightly. By choosing their hands with care, the fish can optimise his chances of gaining the pot. Understanding the disciplines of the tight player is indispensable to a fish if they want to go far in poker. By playing tightly, the player obtains a better understanding of the odds and gets a better feel for the flop.

The selection of hands from the start is fundamental:
For the time being, it is not a question of betting tactics, or the behaviour of opponents. According to our studies, here are the groups of hands that should be your first choice and which will appear in your basic selection in order to participate in the pot (the S after certain hands signifies that the cards are of the same colour). Within the groups, the hands are classified in order of preference. Of course, these groups are a general indication of what is an important hand; they will vary according to the situation, especially after the flop.

Group 1: AA, KK, QQ
Group 2: JJ
Group 3: AKs, 1010, AQs, AJs, KQs
Group 4: AK, 99, K10, QJs, A10s, AQ
Group 5: A9s, KQ, Q10s, J10s, 88, K9s, 109S, A8s

Beginning with group 1 and 2, we have the top 4: AA, KK, QQ AND JJ. With these hands, you should always raise or re-raise. They do not arise very often, therefore you must profit from them in the best way you can. A top pair dealt to you is already a winning hand which does not need to be improved; it is a huge advantage pre-flop. Not to raise with these cards is very unwise; you have to play as aggressively as possible. Be careful not to put yourself in danger, because you hold only one pair, even if it is powerful. You are aggressive preflop with a pair because you hope it will bring rewards, but especially because you want to find yourself in a head to head where statistically you have less chance of losing by a medium hand. With a top pair, you always raise at least 3-4 times the blinds in order to eliminate all the medium hands that enter into the game with a feeble bet.

The combination of groups 1, 2, 3 and 4 form the top 16, which is equivalent to the top 7% of hands. It is fundamentally important to play these cards in the best way in order to optimise your winnings. The top 16 constitutes only 7% of the possible cards that can be distributed, thus they are not likely to make you rich. However you must learn that which they represent when you manage to fall above.

If you compare the above starting groups with those that are mentioned in traditional books about poker, you will notice some subtle differences. For example, Ace-King is slightly more favoured than King-Queen: particularly when there are few players present at the Showdown (the last round of betting following the River). In fact, a hand that comprises of six players at the Showdown rates an Ace-King in the tenth rung of the best hands, while at the first round of betting it is placed in the fifth rung.

Jack-Jack is also an example of a hand whose strength varies depending on the stage of the game. On a table of six players, Jack-Jack is positioned as the forth best hand, but if the number of players reduces, the strength of the hand is also reduced, down to ninth place.

In order to generalise this variation of strengths according to the number of players, you can take as the starting point the following classifications:

Power of hands with two players after the River:
A-A, K-K , Q-Q, A-Ks, A-K, A-Qs, A-Js, K-Qs, J-J, 10-10

Power of hands with six players after the River:
A-A, K-K, Q-Q, J-J, 10-10, K-Qs, A-Ks, A-Qs, A-Js, A-K

The key to playing Texas Hold'EM is to know if you should enter into trying to win the pot with the two private cards that are dealt for each hand. Then, the second phase means knowing which methods you should use top play the hand and give yourself the best chance of winning.

In general the advice is to raise when you have a pair in the 10 ten at the start of the round. You can raise when you have cards in the top 16, except when you believe that a raise will not eliminate enough players with the ‘loose' player profile. On a table where the play tends to be tight, you should only raise pre-flop when you have a pair in the top 5.

However, the best advice if you are on a table which is playing tight is to leave the table as quickly as possible in order to find a table that better suits a weak player (i.e. a fish), or you risk losing!

If you are a beginner, you should never join a game unless your two private cards are in the top24.
Ace-King is a good example of a pair that has a double edge to it depending on the number of players; it works a lot better when you are going head-head, than when there are more players at the table. With Ace-King you have to make sure that you eliminate most of the players before they get a chance to see you at the flop. After the flop, if several opponents are still in the game, the strength of your hand will be diminished. Be careful not to go overboard and put in all your chips, because Ace-King can as well as being very profitable, also make you lose a lot of money, notably against small pairs. You have to play hard with Ace-King, but without risking everything.

10-10 loses its power when the number of players in a round decreases, therefore it is necessary to gather the most number of players possible in a pot when you have this pair. In general, with any pair, you should keep your hopes up because you have a 1 in 7 chance of getting three-of-a-kind. It is enough to count the number of pairs you are dealt where you do not subsequently get three-of-a-kind in order to know your chances of getting one the next time.

Click here to learn how to play poker. understanding winning hand combinations in poker Understanding variations of poker Understanding the importance of play position in poker. Understanding your opponents. Understanding advanced strategies for poker. Understand going All-In. Mastering your game. Understand the approriate kind of poker play for you. Understanding real world poker. Understand chipleading. Dealing with a small stack. Understand the relationship between poker and psychology. Understanding tournaments.

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