Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

How to play poker like the pros

poker playing tips from the pros

Chris Moneymaker

Poker-Playing Tips From the Pros

Melanie Weisner has won European Poker Tour events in Prague and Monte Carlo, and a World Poker Tour event in South Africa. She's cashed 20 times in the World Series of Poker. Launch slideshow »

MEET THE PROS

• Nancy Birnbaum has won three World Poker Tour events and is one of only two female players to win three World Series of Poker Circuit rings.

• Jake Cody is the youngest triple crown winner, with a World Series of Poker bracelet and championship wins in the World Poker Tour and the European Poker Tour. The PokerStars pro has more than $4 million in winnings.

• Asher Conniff made headlines in 2015 when he won the World Poker Tour’s World Championship for almost $1 million after securing his seat by winning a tournament he’d entered by mistake.

• Ari Engel has won a World Poker Tour event and the Heartland Poker Tour main event. He is one of only three players to win seven World Series of Poker Circuit rings.

• Rachel Kranz is a World Poker Tour event winner and poker writer. She has a soft spot for Las Vegas, where she cashed her largest win: $113,073.

• Byron Kaverman is ranked No. 1 on the Global Poker Index. He’s a World Series of Poker bracelet winner and has amassed almost $7 million in poker winnings.

• Chris Moneymaker is a PokerStars-sponsored pro with almost $4 million in poker winnings. He’s best known for winning the World Series of Poker main event after qualifying online and having never played a live tournament before.

• Dan O’Brien is a Las Vegas resident whose poker earnings of almost $3 million place him at No. 51 on Nevada’s all-time money list. His home-turf wins include the Grand Challenge Tournament main event.

• Melanie Weisner has won European Poker Tour events in Prague and Monte Carlo, and a World Poker Tour event in South Africa. She has cashed 20 times in the World Series of Poker.

• Anthony Zinno is a World Series of Poker bracelet winner and three-time World Poker Tour main event champion, with more than $5 million in live poker earnings.

There’s no such thing as an offseason in poker.

Every summer, the World Series of Poker attracts thousands of poker enthusiasts to Las Vegas to play in the most prestigious event of the year, but it isn’t the only game in town. Casinos host thousands of smaller tournaments throughout the year, and the first major series of 2016 is set to begin Monday with the Venetian’s quarterly Deepstack Extravaganza.

The abundance of options offers opportunities both for beginners and for seasoned professionals.

Whether you’re an expert trying to perfect your game or a novice testing the waters, poker is a skill that always can be improved. To increase your chances of winning, follow these tips from 10 of poker’s elite, who have won a combined $28 million.

SLEEP WELL

• Anthony Zinno: Lots of players stay up late playing cash games before a tourney day and sleep only a few hours. Then during a tournament, post-bagging sleep can be difficult because adrenaline is still flowing for hours after play ends. Try to get a good sleep or you’ll hinder your brain’s ability to strategize.

• Chris Moneymaker: Sleep well the night before you play. Come in fresh with a focused mind or you’ll make poor judgments late in tournament, when it matters most.

EAT SMART

• Dan O’Brien: Playing high-level poker all day is taxing and requires a lot of energy. So does digestion. Plan your food intake so you’re not sapping your brain’s fuel to digest heavy meals while you’re playing. Eat light, nutritious food throughout the day and save the big meal until the end.

• Rachel Kranz: Keep up your blood sugar. I eat food that’s high-protein, low-sugar and easily digestible, such as tuna salad, hummus and vegetables or an apple and walnuts. Crashes and spikes in your blood sugar can make the difference between a well-reasoned decision and an impulsive move you’ll regret.

PAY ATTENTION

• Melanie Weisner: You might find your phone more entertaining, but pay attention to hands you aren’t in or you’ll miss information you could use to your advantage. Look for the baseline behavior of your opponents when they’re comfortable, so you can gauge what their behaviors mean when they’re under duress. Pay attention to what hands go to showdown to determine the best strategies for different players.

• Asher Conniff: Get off your cellphone and stop walking around or taking smoke breaks. There’s a lot of information being passed around the table every hand.

• Kranz: Be focused and alert. You’ll gather information on betting patterns, physical tells, even verbal clues.

THINK STRATEGICALLY

• Jake Cody: Pay attention to position. It’s best to be one of the last players to act because you’ll have more information on what the other players are doing. Focus on playing more hands in late position.

• Moneymaker: Show up on time, especially in fields with a high mixture of pros and recreational players. Pros are notoriously late to show up, and many times get punished by being grouped together on the late registration table. Be around early when weaker players give away their chips.

• O’Brien: When choosing the size of your bets, the size of the pot often is the most important factor. But stack sizes can be just as important, if not more. Think about bet sizes that will put your opponent’s entire stack in jeopardy, while only risking a portion of your own.

KNOW WHEN TO BLUFF

• Nancy Birnbaum: Focus on bluffing in good spots and extracting the maximum from your value hands. Hero calling is unprofitable in the long run, so avoid making calls with marginal hands when you think your opponent is bluffing.

• Moneymaker: No one can wait around for good cards; give yourself permission to go broke with the worst hand. Be willing to die. Then you can bluff more and build a bigger stack more frequently.

• Byron Kaverman: Be aware of how your opponents might perceive you in terms of playing styles, and trust your instincts.

• Cody: Keep people guessing. If you play only strong hands aggressively, it’s easy for opponents to see what you’re up to and make the right play.

KNOW YOUR BANKROLL

• Cody: Choose the right stakes. It’s important that you play for stakes you can afford to lose.

• Moneymaker: Know your roll. Before playing, you need to understand the high variance of tournament play and adjust your buy-in level accordingly. You should not be over 1 to 2 percent of your bankroll for a given event.

• Ari Engel: Have enough of a cushion to ride out the variance inherent to poker. Most people wouldn’t feel comfortable gambling their entire net worth, even if they’re a 90-10 favorite. But if you take that attitude to the poker table, it’s hard to take the necessary risks, like playing aggressive, to win. If you play within your bankroll and you’re comfortable losing that money, you’ll play a lot better.

BE AGGRESSIVE

• Birnbaum: Raise, don’t call. There are times when you should call, but try a strategy of only raising or folding pre-flop. It will greatly improve your game because it will force you to play hands more aggressively.

• Engel: When in doubt, choose the aggressive option. Aggression allows you to win, even when you don’t have the best hand, and forces people to pay to try to get lucky on you. Being too passive is a big mistake beginners make.

• Kaverman: Players who consistently apply pressure and put their opponents in tough situations generally have the most success in tournaments, although this strategy might not apply in cash games.

• Cody: Look for opportunities to crank up the pressure on your opponents. When you’re the first player to enter a pot, come in with a raise rather than a call. If you’ve got a flush draw, raise instead of calling. When you raise, you take control of the hand and have more ways to win. If you play passively and just call, you’re relying on hitting big hands to win, and you can easily be bluffed by other players at the table.

PERFECT YOUR STATE OF MIND

• Melanie Weisner: Everyone experiences tilting (a state of confusion or frustration in which a player adopts a less-than-optimal strategy); it’s an egotistical error to imagine you don’t. The key is how to spot it, be aware of it and manage it. Make sure you’re in the state of mind to play your A-game. If you’re feeling tired, irritable, drained or not in the mood to attack the game, don’t.

• Conniff: Staying calm in live poker makes it possible to play the game the right way. It takes most people a while to learn how to be calm, especially during important moments when you’re bluffing or playing for a lot of money. But focus on being happy at the poker table, especially if you spend a lot of time there. Too many people take everything too seriously and don’t have a good time. At the end of the day, it’s just a game.

• Zinno: If you expect and prepare for a long day, you’ll be in a better mental state. Bring water, snacks, phone chargers, headphones and a sweater or a hoodie because some venues really crank the AC.

• Kranz: Keep your stress level low by bringing noise-cancelling headphones. Avoid distraction by choosing music with no lyrics or put on your headphones without music to give yourself a break from a rowdy table. You can shake your head politely when a nonstop talker tries to tell you about a bad beat.

• O’Brien: Live in the moment and focus your energy on playing your current stack well. Forget about how many chips you should or would have if that river didn’t come or this idiot folded his trash hand.

KEEP LEARNING

• Weisner: Learning from your own experience is one of the best ways to master the game, plug your leaks and advance your strengths. Write down spots you were unsure of and analyze them later when you can be more objective. Coaching from a better player will accelerate your learning. A coach can recognize errors or analyze play in a way that will transform your understanding of the game.

• Zinno: Watch poker on television or online. Learn from players who are more experienced than you, or learn by watching for mistakes. Pay attention to mannerisms and other physical tells. Ask yourself, “What should they have done in that spot?” Apply it to your game.

• Engel: Sometimes you get unlucky, and sometimes you made a mistake. The only way to truly work on your game is with a healthy dose of self-honesty. It’s a long journey of self-improvement to become a winning poker player, and you are your own best recourse. Be honest to yourself and do your best to work on mistakes.

Join the Discussion:

Check this out for a full explanation of our conversion to the LiveFyre commenting system and instructions on how to sign up for an account.

Full comments policy