Poker Strategies

Last September, 11 poker pros gathered at the World Series of Poker Europe for the final of £2,500 H.O.R.S.E Event. They were Howard Lederer, Raul Paez, Erik Albinsson, Ivo Donev, Sherkhan Farnood, Jeffrey Lisandro, Mark Gregorich, Phil Ivey, Yuval Bronshtein, Jeff Duval, and Spencer Lawrence.

One of them was eliminated immediately on the very first hand. It was an Omaha-8 round. Paez raised to 8,000 and Lederer called from the big blind. The flop fell 7c-6h-2d. Lederer placed a bet of 4,000 and Paez called. The turn fell 4c and Lederer put Paez in for the last of his stack at 5,500. Paez had a holding of 10h-Ah-10c-8c for a flush draw, gutshot straight draw, and a bad low. Lederer held 5h-5s-6s-7h for two pair, a straight draw, and a seven low. The river fell the Jd, eliminating Paez. Lederer scooped the pot while Paez took home £6,188.

Finishing 10th in the game was Yuval Bronshtein. It was the Stud 8 round and he was all in on fifth street. Phil Ivey made the call. Bronshtein was on an 8 gutshot draw on the sixth street with a holding of 5s-9h-Ad-8d (Jh-Qd). Ivey had a pair of kings. The final card for Bronshtein was a 4c, eliminating him from the tournament. He received £6,875 for his finish.

Next to fall was Erik Albinsson. He went all in on fourth street while in a Stud 8 round. He held 3d-6d-5c-Qd. Jeffrey Lisandro made the call. He had Ah-4s-10c-10d. Albinsson caught a 5h on fifth street, giving him a pair. Lisandro caught a 4c and that put him in the lead. Albinsson lost one of his outs on the 6th when Lisandro caught a 5s. Albinsson caught a 9h but missed a 6h on seventh street. He finished 9th and took home £6,875.

The final table was now set. All that remained were Phil Ivey, Howard Lederer, Spencer Lawrence, Sherkhan Farnood, Jeffrey Lisandro, Ivo Donev, Mark Gregorich, and Jeff Duval.

The next elimination took place almost three hours later. Lawrence was all in on Third Street and three Poker players were in the pot. Duval made an open pair of tens on fourth. Ivey ducked out. Duval bet out on fifth into Lederer, who was showing three spades and made the call. On Sixth Street, Duval opened three cards to a straight on board while Lederer had three wheel cards. Both of them checked. The same happened on the seventh. Lederer only had a pair of aces while Duval showed buried kings for kings up. Lawrence only held nines and threes. Lawrence was eliminated in 8th place with a finish of £8,938.

Like in the past two years, Lisandro was the strongest players at the poker tournaments this year. During the Holdem round, the board was 6h-4c-Kh-8h and Lisandro raised all in to 15,000. Lederer made the call and Lisandro showed Jh-Jd for a pair and a flush draw. Lederer showed 7h-5s for a straight and a weaker flush draw. The river fell the Ac and Lisandro ended up finishing 7th with a loot of £11,000.

For half an hour after this, Ivey was in a losing streak and had only 14,500 left. During the stud round, he became involved in a hand with Gregorich who bet him out on every street and even bet dark on seventh. Ivey made the call with the last of his chips. Gregorich showed buried queens with a pair of sizes for queens-up. Ivey headed for the rail and finished 6th. He received £13,750.

After this, Gregorich only had about 32,000 chips left. The limits were 6,000-12,000 so he had to make a stand. During a holdem round, the pot was three bets between Farnood and Gregorich with the flop Kc-9c-8c. Gregorich bet. Farnood raised. Gregorich made the call. The turn fell the 4d at which point Gregorich checked to Farnood. Farnood bet. Gregorich onlu had 13,000 chips left and put it all in. Farnood called and showed 5c-5s for a pair and a flush draw. Gregorich showed Ad-Jh for air. The river fell the 9s and eliminated Gregorich in 5th place with £17,188.

Lederer was in control now of the game and had moved up to 553,000 in chips at one point four handed due to a big stud pot with Farnood. While Lederer was the chip leader at this point, you have to remember that things in Limit poker can change quickly. By the time the players were four handed, the limits were 8,000 and 16,000 and a couple of pots could create a big swing in chips. All that in part two of this article.

During a certain game at the World Series of Poker,  David “DevilFish” Ulliott had flopped a set of kings holding Ks-Kh-7c-2s.  The flop fell Kd-Jc-5d.  His opponent, Markus Golser, had a holding of Ad-Qd-10c-4s.  He had both a nut flush draw and a nut straight with 17 outs to hit his hand (Jd would give Ulliott a full house and this had to be subtracted from the equation).  At this point, Golser was around 70% to make his poker hand but Ulliott was behind.

Omaha Poker is a game of big cards and big draws. The game between Ulliot and Golser was a very good example of how a big draw can actually be better than a made hand.  Golser caught a 9 on the fourth street and had a hand that had multiple straight and flush draws. In the end, he was able to knock out a player when his draw got there.

A wrap is a poker hand that has at least 3 coordinated cards that can help make a straight.  An example of this is A-Q-10-4.  Hands such as J-10-9-8 are also very powerful hands because these can make any potential winning hand from a nine high straight to broadway.  Hands that are also suited and coordinated will be even more valuable.

Players who have a big wrap like A-Q-J-10 or J-10-9-8 will usually raise pre-flop. This is not a really bad play, actually. If the board flops low or paired then you will have some kind of a straight draw with many flops. There is also a very good chance for flopping high pairs and even sets when the board comes paired. You get additional outs when you catch a flush draw if your wrap is suited.

When doing flop a solid draw, many Poker players get a bit confused as to how they should play a wrap. Some recommend pushing draws like what Golser did. This play is solid because a lot of times you will have a lot of outs to hit your draw. Just be careful pushing if you only have a gutshot draw because then you will only have four outs and you want at least an open-ended straight draw with at least 8 outs. If you have a straight and flush draws, you will usually have 18 outs. You can feel confident about your Poker Games now as the odds are in your favor for hitting your hand.

Be a little more careful if you’re pushing a wrap on the turn. Here, your odds will be reduced by half due to the fact that only a single card can come and you might not hit your hand. Thus, at this point, it becomes more important to look at your pot odds, which you can compute for using the 4-2 method. If you have 18 outs, then the possibility that you will make your hand is 36%. In most cases, the odds will be for you to make a draw. But if the odds look a bit bleak, then you might want to consider just folding your hand.