Poker Strategies

“Texas Dolly” Doyle Brunson is regarded as the only true living legend in the Poker world. Playing a lot of competitive poker games, it is hard to imagine him not taking part at the World Series of Poker. To date, Doyle has won 10 WSOP, winning his first in 1976. Back then the World Series was much smaller. He won his last bracelet in 2005. His story as a poker player is of the type you make movies about. He has been through it all, playing against the best in four different decades and eventually becoming one of the best.

He wrote a book entitled Super System, known as the “poker bible”. It is said to have changed the poker world forever. Now, the average player can see how the pros were making money playing Texas Holdem. This book will teach you how to play the game like a pro. A lot of Online Poker amateurs are playing better because of the things Doyle wrote about in his book.

Doyle is best known as a Texas Holdem Poker player although a lot consider him to be the best all around poker player ever. He has won bracelets in No Limit Holdem, Deuce to Seven Draw, 7 card stud, Razz and HORSE, and even a Mixed Doubles event with Starla Brodie in 1979. Of his 10 bracelets, four were won playing No Limit Holdem.

The 10 – 2 is Doyle’s hand. He won back to back main poker events holding those two hole cards – one in 1976 and another in 1977. In ’76, he beat Jesse Alto Heads up coming from behind to make a full house. In’77, again holding 10 – 2, he came from behind making a full house against Gary Berland. Although considered one of the worst hands in poker, 10- 2 is will always be known as “Doyle Brunson”. Doyle will even play the hand once in a while on television just for show.

Doyle didn’t win any bracelets in the 80s. In 1991 he won his first bracelet since 1979, taking home the $2,500 No Limit Holdem event for more than $200,000. In 1998 he won a RAZZ tournament. Back in 2003 he proved he could still win big tournaments when he bagged the HORSE event. In 2005, “Texas Dolly” won his tenth World Series of Poker bracelet and took home the Shorthanded event.

He was always a family man and married his wife Louise in 1962. They had three children. His son Todd became a professional poker player also, making him and Doyle the first father / son combination to win World Series of Poker bracelets. And it seems the game runs in their blood. Pamela, his daughter, also plays and found some success in the 2007 Series.

Life hasn’t always been easy for Doyle despite his success in his career as a pro poker player. He was diagnosed with cancer in the early ‘60’s and it was said to incurable. After he had an operation, no cancer was found. The doctors were stomped and said it had to be a miracle. One of his daughters, Doyla, passed away at the young age of 18 and Doyle turned to religion to get him through the tough times.

To this day, he can often be seen at the biggest cash games in Vegas and even plays multiple tournaments a year. He plays in the World Series of Poker every year – in both Las Vegas and Europe. He has made an estimated $2,800,000 in his World Series career, and shows no sign of stopping any time soon. He continues the chase for his 11th bracelet and in 2008 had big runs in tournaments, finishing 21st in event eight and finished 16th at the World Championship of HORSE.

Without a doubt, Doyle had revolutionized the game of poker. A lot of people regard him as the very face of poker. He continues to inspire not just through his game but through the way he lives his life.

If you are playing Texas Holdem and you see pocket aces in your hand, you might feel inclined to do a little leap inside your head. The same thing tends to happen to players who see pocket aces when playing Pot Limit Omaha Poker. But you should keep in mind that not all poker hands that have aces are strong. They are called “uncoordinated aces” or “naked aces”.

Many players know that the best starting hand in this variation of poker is A-A-K-K double suited. This is considered a monster hand in Pot Limit Omaha Poker and pre-flop this hand will always be ahead. Other powerful hands are those that have aces in them and a couple of coordinated cards.

But when the aces are not coordinated or suited, it can get a little tricky as Poker players will usually assume that it is a strong hand also. They sometimes start playing it as they would a Holdem poker game, treating any starting hand with two aces like the nuts. The problem here is that aces that do not have any backup will force you to rely only on the aces to win your hand. Either that or you need to be extremely lucky.

Let’s look at this situation. Player X is an aggressive player type who raised from the middle position in an Omaha Poker game. The player on the button reraised the pot. The LAG player then reraised all-in and was called. He showed A-A-4-9 off suit and the opponent had a holding of Qh-Jd-10h-9s. In this case, the aces only have a 58% chance of winning. It is too close a poker game. The flop falls 8s-10c-2d, which suddenly brings the aces down and leaves them the underdog. The player with the wrap now had a 57% chance of winning and actually hit his straight. The aces were busted.

While the situation above required the wrap to hit the hand, it also demonstrates that a player needs to backup his aces. Any random hand with two aces may be a favorite pre-flop but it needs to hit in order to stay ahead in the game. Majority of the time uncoordinated aces will not hit the flop.

How you should play uncoordinated aces depends on a couple of factors. You should consider what your position is at the table, what type of players your opponents are, what the limits are, and how much you have in your stack. This is the type of hand that you may even want to consider doing a limp-reraise with just to see if you get lucky on the flop. Limping with aces seems to be a pretty bad thing to do but you should keep in mind that this is an Omaha Poker Games hence it is a drawing game. If you pick up a draw on the flop, you will actually be ahead against other players who have uncoordinated aces. If you are playing on the button against only limpers and you know that a raise will eliminate some of them out, you may consider putting in a raise. Just remember that if you do not hit the flop, you should tread lightly or you might just end up giving your chips all away.