"How To Improve
Your Poker Odds
Playing Full Tables"
The poker strategy that pays off
with the big winning pots
Most new players don’t give enough thought to poker odds when they take a seat at an online table. Here’s something to consider. If you are at a full table and everyone is investing in the pot, that’s good news because it means there’s more money to be won. What isn’t good news is your chances of winning the pot are dramatically reduced if you have a lot of players competing. What you want to create during the game is the best of both worlds. Your strategy should be to allow other players to knock each other out of contention. The longer you can stay in the game and out of harm’s way the better your odds. Everyone present has contributed to swelling the pot and now you want as many of them as possible out of the game because each time one of them cracks your chances of taking the loot improve. This kind of play, with the right cards, becomes instinctive with experience.
AN OMAHA INSIGHT
We write a lot about how much more likely it is you’ll find yourself with a premium hand in Omaha than in Texas Hold’em because you have more cards from which to select your best five card hand. This can often lead to two players facing off who both have a Full House. When this happens, and it’s not that rare in Omaha, obviously the highest value Full House wins. So if you’re holding a Full House and you’re feeling one hundred percent about your chances of stealing the pot, just check the board and make sure the three -of- a- kind section of your hand is comprised of higher value cards than any pair that might be displayed among those community cards.
Let’s say you have two tens as hole cards and are making up your three-of-a-kind with the help of a stray ten on the board. If you are also relying on a pair of jacks displayed on the board to complete your Full House be very well aware it’s a virtual certainty another player has made “trips” of the jacks (In other words he has a jack in the hole to make his three-of-a-kind). So if there’s also a pair of nines on the board your opponent’s three jacks and two nines are going to pip your three tens and two jacks for the pot! Think it can’t happen? Think again. The key is, are your trips stronger than any exposed pair on the board?
ALL THE ACES poker column:
Saturday, October 08, 2005: How to increase your poker odds playing full tables
