As I wrote yesterday, implied odds are related to pot odds but often abused.

Implied odds should only be used in some specific situations:

• Playing against an aggressive player.
• Playing against a calling station.
• Specific tactical situations where the opponent will be “priced-into” the pot and required to pay off your final bet, should you hit a winning hand.

All too often, I see poor players justify bad calls very early in tournaments by claiming “pot odds”. Because it is too early in a tournament to possibly have a read on an opponent with any degree of accuracy, there is no way for them to know they will get paid off. Up against a player that has played thousands for tourneys who has no problem laying down T400 in level 2 in the face of an obvious flush or draw, making that pot-sized call on the flop is a bad decision. When you hit, you won’t get paid off. When you don’t, you just lost more chips than you had a reasonable chance of winning.

See for yourself.

I say it all the time, so it must be important – pot odds are critical to long-term success at poker. Here’s a nice explanation of pot odds, without getting too technical, from MyHoldemTips at YouTube.

Come back tomorrow, because the concept of “Implied Odds” is related, and very important, although in my opinion gets abused much too often as justification for making bad calls.

The final installment in Rick Braddy’s Sit-and-Go Tournament Tutorial. He continues to fold his small blind, trying to set up a trap. I prefer more aggressive play heads-up and win 57% of the time, lifetime, in SNGs. By accumulating chips as best I can, it enables me to take more risks heads-up, when in most cases I’m never worse than 3-2 pre-flop.

In his recap, he makes the claim that we can make it into the money 80% of the time following the system. Not in the long run. Sorry, I like the videos, but that claim can’t be substantiated statistically. You should make it to the money 33% of the time, on average, if you’re an average player. If you’re better than average, you’ll get a few percentage points higher. At 40%, you’re making really good money – trust me! At 39% ITM, my ROI was 12% long-term, much higher for short runs where I was running 50%+ ITM. There are a couple people playing at a very high level, multi-tabling, are doing better, but they are a miniscule minority. Go to sharkscope and start checking the players you play against in your SNGs, and you’ll see what I mean.

Rick’s strategy is a winning strategy, especially his early and middle game strategy, but nowhere near his claims. Test for yourself.

The biggest mistake I see in poker tournaments, whether they are sit and go or multi-table tournaments, is the failure to adjust the player’s game to account for the variation in tournament rules versus cash game rules. I’ll be pulling together into this series as many videos on the subject of no limit holdem tournament strategy as I deem worthwhile, so stick around.

Continuing Rick Braddy’s series of videos with mostly-solid sit and go tournament strategy and tips. At this point, we’re in the money and Rick has a big stack and he’s trying to sit back and let the other players fight it out. I prefer to let my opponents dictate the action – if there’s a player playing passive, I like to push him around. So many players just try to fold and hope to get heads-up, where anything can happen, especially when blinds are high. Now, Rick is playing that same exact way, and I would pop him every chance regardless of having me covered. Aggression is rewarded here, in my opinion. Rick has given up an opportunity to gather chips.

Note to Rick – calling heads-up is NOT aggressive play!

Here are a few VERY general tips about No Limit Texas Hold ‘Em from MyHoldemTips, and I’m not sure how I feel about them. They just feel TOO general. But, my NLHE experience is primarily from tournaments and my cash game experience is neither wide, nor profitable. I’d like to hear what you think about these tips. Do you agree?

Rick Braddy is back with Part 5 of his Sit and Go tutorial. Here he is in the middle game, having tightened up a bit and taking time to evaluate the other players’ strategic positions in terms of relative chip stacks and range of likely hands being played. Watch this video for an understanding of how to play the short stack, and how some players wait too long before throwing those short stacks around.

Rick Braddy starts working on the middle game in this video, with about 6 players left. He’s the chip leader here, and he talks about his philosophy of gambling with a small portion of his chips, but still trying to stay patient and let the other players play while he analyzes their play. He shows the benefits of being a bit aggressive with his big stack, but his table is playing fairly loose-weak, so he’s able to pick up a bunch of orphan pots while his opponents wait for each other to get knocked out. He also talks about tightening up as your opponents begin to play back so you can trap them, a benefit of being able to change gears.

From my perspective, understanding the game from a strategic perspective – where you are in relation to the other players and the blinds – is a key to being able to change gears effectively. This knowledge helps you understand your opponents strategic position, so you know who can be pushed around and who is going to be looking for an opportunity to play for their stack.

Here is where I start to see some differences in the way I play and the way Rick plays. Rick is the chip leader, and begins playing some pretty marginal hands out of position. At this stage, I want to play very strategically – I’m a chip leader, I pick weak players during this stage, pop them with selective raises so I can either pick up some blinds or isolate with what are some pretty weak hands. Calling with A6 and 2-2 in EP is a prescription for leaking chips, bit by bit.

Your opinion?