Beat Anyone at Poker

Whether you’re playing for high stakes or just to keep your clothes on, learn to think like a pro… With over ₹148000000 in winnings, TV presenter Liv Boeree, 29, is a multi-champion representing Team PokerStars Pro UK. Take on her chip-hoarding wisdom and destroy your mates every time…

01

When you play a hand of poker, you have two ways of winning: you can make the best hand with the cards you have or, if you think you have the worst hand, you can bet enough to make the other person fold. This is bluffing: knowing you have the worse hand, and getting your opponent to fold a better one. It’s a very delicate art. It’s possible to win by playing honest – only betting when you’ve got a strong hand – but if you just want to rely on the cards, you might as well play roulette. It’s like going into a gunfight with a catapult: stupid.

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02

Don’t get emotionally attached to the cards you began with. As more cards, known collectively as community cards, are turned over in subsequent betting rounds – the flop, turn and river – the strength of your hand can go up, or down. At any stage, you’re betting on the relative strength of your hand. Aces come around very rarely and people get so excited when they get them that they don’t take into account the range of hands their opponent is playing and how that range connects the board. What started off as a good hand might not be by the time it gets to the river.

03

You’ve always got to be aware of who you’re playing against. Generally speaking, you want to sucker people in when you have a really strong hand and win as big a pot as possible. So if you’re playing against someone who folds really easily, you want to bet lower amounts, to avoid scaring them off. If you’re playing against someone who never folds, you want to bet bigger, because either way they’ll keep putting chips into the pot. Just be aware that if the board does become really scary, you might want to slow down. Your opponent can always get lucky.

04

One of the most important things in poker is the ability to act second, to be the last person to make your decision, and that’s because you have so much more information available to you. It’s called playing in position. The player with the dealer button is in the best position – they can play a really wide range of hands because they get to see what people do before them and therefore have more information to make a decision. If you’re playing in an early position, you want to play a much tighter range of hands, and bet more conservatively.

05

The definition of a poker face is showing no reaction, no emotion. You’re going to get excited, you’re going to get scared – that’s one of the thrilling things about poker, those emotional moments, the highs and the lows. Being emotionally neutral might not sound as exciting, but it’s the most effective way to play. If your opponents suspect you’ve hit something, they might fold and the size of the pot will be smaller than it could have been. Only when you’ve won a big hand should you let yourself be happy.

06

Poker is a game of logic – it's science with a sprinkling of intuition and creativity. The very best players are those that have their groundings in the mathematics and theory of the game, and have learned to read people well. You don’t need to be a genius to understand the maths of poker – there are a lot of very successful pro players who barely finished school. Having a degree in astrophysics has definitely helped me, but it’s not essential.

07

Always play within your budget. If you want to take up golf and you earn ₹20 lakh a year, I wouldn’t recommend you put ₹5 lakh down on club membership and kit. The same goes for poker. If it’s a hobby you want to take up and you enjoy playing, great. You might win some money, but be aware that you might lose some money as well. You can play perfectly, get unlucky and then boom, there goes 60% of your bankroll. Play really small until you’re winning comfortably, and only then move to higher stakes.

08

Remember, you don’t have to play for money. On websites like PokerStars you can play for pretend cash. You won’t win anything, but you won’t lose it either. You can also enter satellite tournaments, which are feeder events into bigger ones, for as little as 10 cents, or even free. Win one, and the next one, and the next thing you know you can be playing for a million dollars. That’s how I got started in poker, and that’s often still how I get to play tournaments. I try to avoid putting up ₹6 lakh whenever I can!

Poker speak: a bluffer’s guide

• Community cards: Cards turned face up on the table that all players can use to make hands.
• Bullets: When you’re dealt a pair of aces at the start of a hand. Also known as pocket aces.
• Stop and go: Making a strong bet, then checking next time around, disguising the power of your hand.
• Fish: A really piss-poor player who is practically giving their money away. Don’t be a fish.
• Suck out: When you’re holding a losing hand, then you get lucky and hit the card you need.

From the April 2014 issue of FHM India.