No-Limit Hold'em (NLH):
Of the 10 most prestigious poker tournaments today, six are NLH. There is a list of the 50 most prestigious events in poker in Appendix 3. The biggest two—the World Series of Poker (WSOP) and the Poker Million—each pay roughly $1.5 million for first place!

Imagine the scene in 2001 at the World Series of Poker when we were down to six players left in the tournament. I was still playing. The Travel Channel had a battery of cameras covering the table and the surrounding standing-room-only crowd. (Most of the crowd had to watch the action on television monitors set up throughout the room.) Two live Internet broadcasts were going on, one at my site (philhellmuth and one at Mark and Tina Napolitano's site (PokerPages). With a first-place prize of $1.5 million and $6,130,000 in tournament chips lying on the table, we engaged in some pretty spectacular clashes that day.

In one hand, I opened the pot for $90,000 on the button with J3-[V] (exactly the same two cards that I won the WSOP with in 1989!) and Phil Gordon moved all-in in the big blind for about $550,000 total. I called his $450,000 raise so quickly that I freaked out everyone at the table! I just knew that he was going to move all-in with a weak hand, and I was ready for him. It turned out that he had 6-6, which made me a 4!/2-to-l favorite to win the $1.1 million pot and bust him (I still had $500,000 in chips left if he won).

Unfortunately for me, the flop was 6-8-K, and his three sixes wound up winning the pot. If I had won this pot, then I would have had at least $1.6 million in chips and perhaps would have won my second "big one." My friend Andy, reading this book in draft, remarked that there's very little "perhaps" to it, although he was extraordinarily impressed with Dewey Tomko's play at the final table (Tomko finished second). Oh, well, either way, it was an exciting hand to be a part of! The two black nines lost the $1.1 million pot, but in 1989 they had held up for a $1.2 million pot and given me the WSOP title. So, 0-[V] is still my favorite hand, and I'd had a really good chance to immortalize it that day. Winning the most prestigious NLH event in the world is the best way to achieve poker immortality!

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• Advanced Hold Em Poker On The Flop (0)

In PLH you'll often be able to look at a flop, because the preflop raises are limited to the size of the pot. In fact, all bets are limited to the size of the pot. So, if the blinds are $l-$2, then the first raiser can only make it $7 to go: $1SB + $2BB + $2 call = $5 raise, so $2 call + $5 raise = $7 to go. (SB is small blind; BB is big blind.) If you've got $200 in front of you, wouldn't you like to take a $7 flop with a pocket pair?

If you hit a set, then you may get the other $193 into the pot when you're a huge favorite. Let's take this example further and suppose that someone did open for $7 and two players called the $7, one of them the big blind. How much can then be bet on the flop? Well, $7 from the raiser + $7 caller + $1SB + $7BB (caller) = $22. Suppose that the big blind bets out the maximum $22. How much can the original raiser make it? Well, $22 in the pot + $22BB pot-size bet + $22 pot-size call from the raiser (he has to count his own $22 call before he makes a raise) = $66. So the original raiser can call $22 and raise $66, making it a total of $88 to go. The betting can escalate quickly in PLH.

Some world-class players believe that there is more skill in PLH than in NLH because there is more play on the flop in PLH. I believe that it is very close, but I will say that playing flops takes a ton of skill. The way some players play NLH today, folding or betting it all before the flop—without ever taking a flop—does take some edge away from the more skilled Hold'em players.

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• Poker – No-limit And Pot-limit Hold (0)

It's time now to talk about the Cadillac of all poker games, no-limit Hold'em (NLH), and its brother, pot-limit Hold'em (PLH). In NLH you can bet any amount of the money in front of you on the table at any time! Imagine this concept: any amount at any time. If you sense weakness in your opponent, then go ahead and bet $100,000 on a pure bluff.

Of course, if you bluff $100,000 at someone who has only $50,000 left in front of him on the table, then he is allowed to call for his $50,000, making your bet effectively $50,000. If we didn't have that protection in place, whereby you can only bet as much as your opponents have in front of them (called "table stakes"), then Bill Gates would win every pot! Bluffing is a much bigger part of NLH and PLH than it is in limit Hold'em. The great bluffs, the great "reads," and the massive amount of strategy involved in NLH make it the most interesting and most strategic game that we have in poker.

PLH is similar to NLH after the flop play, because by that point the pot in a PLH game has usually grown large enough to make huge bets possible. Before the flop, there are a fair number of strategic differences between the two games, because big bets aren't possible immediately in PLH. But in most respects PLH and NLH are roughly the same game. In this chapter you will learn:

I The difference between no-limit Hold'em (NLH) and pot-limit Hold'em (PLH).
I How to introduce NLH into your game—"cash downs."
I Phil's "NLH fifteen."
I How to trap with A-A and K-K.
I Three theories on how to play pocket 2-2 to 8-8, and A-Q.
I Phil's game—"Guess your opponent's exact two hole
cards."
I Phil's NLH theory.
I The "bet it all" NLH strategy—yuck!
I The "suited connector" NLH theory that Huck Seed uses.
I The superadvanced "Calling with nothing" NLH theory.
I Dave "Devilfish" Ulliott's NLH theory.

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• Advanced Hold Em Poker On The Flop (0)

Note that most of the plays I have talked about involve having the advantage of position. Being able to act last is a huge advantage in all forms of Hold'em. Imagine, you can just sit back and wait for all your opponents to act in front of you. "Just sit back and all will be revealed to you" isn't exactly the case, but it is nice to know where the other players stand. If the others check, then they're generally weak. If you have a powerful hand, then you can raise it when they bet. If you have a weak hand, then you can check behind them when they check. Having position in Hold'em poker is always good.

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• Pot-limit Hold Em Poker (plh) (0)
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I'm not going to spend any more time in the realm of restealing and suited connectors in Hold'em, because it really is for expert players only, and it isn't to be dabbled in lightly! I would recommend that all beginners stay away from this advanced strategy, since they will find it very hazardous to their bank balances, with one exception: the suited-connector reraise (advertising) before the flop once or twice a night. I think this play is good for a beginner, because it makes him more difficult for the rest of the table to read.

The real problem with advanced play—for all of us, whether we are world-class or beginners—is that it causes us to play too many hands. When we begin to win pots with (or see other players win with this hand), then we start to play 7-8 suited far too often before the flop. Pretty soon, 6-8 suited looks good as well.

Playing suited connectors is like eating potato chips: once you eat one chip, you can't help eating many more! Once you start to win with suited connectors, you begin to play them all the time. I've seen people think this way many times in the past, "Three bets to me when I have [3-0; sure I'll call. Why not, when I've been winning with these types of hands all night?" Beware of overplaying suited connectors. If you're not careful, before long you'll tell someone, "Man, was I unlucky with 0-[V] today. I called three bets and the flop was 8-9-10, and then …" Buddy, if you called three bets with then
you got what you deserved!

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• Advanced Hold Em Poker On The Flop (0)

Advanced Hold'em on the flop is really all about reading other players. If you read your opponent as weak and think you might be able to take the pot away from him, then do it! If you have flopped a big hand and you feel that betting will drive out your opponent when what you want to do is keep him in the pot, then go ahead and trap your opponent by checking on the flop. Use your reading ability on the flop to determine what you can and cannot do.

You may have flopped top pair, but if you read that your opponent has you beat, just fold your hand, having lost the minimum number of bets. If you read your opponent as being weak before the flop and you are making a steal on him, then make sure that you follow through on your steal attempt, unless you then have a strong read that he has hit the flop well. Again, advanced Hold'em on the flop is all about reading your opponents.

I know I keep mentioning reading the opposition, and I can't teach you how to be intuitive. I can, however, tell you that a lot of the information going into my reads comes from working hard at studying my opponents, both when I'm in a hand with them and when I'm out. Intuition springs from a combination of matters that you can understand and explain, and others that you can't. In the discussion of no-limit and pot-limit Hold'em (Chapter 6) I talk about a game I play while I'm at the poker table. The object is to try to determine someone's exact two hole cards in a hand. Through practicing guessing at what my opponent's cards are, even when I'm out of a hand, I increase my own reading abilities. (Flip on over to the material on no-limit for more details.)

Suppose that you have K-K before the flop and two opponents are also in the pot. If the flop comes down A-7-2, the advanced player makes his money by knowing what to do, on the strength of his read of his opponents. Does either of your opponents, or do both of them, hold an ace, a set of sevens, or a set of twos? How does the betting on the flop come down? Are your opponents capable of raising on the flop with just a pair of sevens or worse? If it does come bet and raised to you in this spot, will you three-bet it or fold? Odds are that you probably have to fold in this case, but what does intuition tell you to do?

I have played with advanced players who have bet out 8-8 on the end with a board of A-Q-7-5-3, simply because they thought they had the best hand, and they proved to be right! In fact, their bet was called on the end by someone who couldn't beat the 8-8! How did they know that the 8-8 was the best hand? How could they possibly have value-bet their hand in this case? Perhaps they knew that their opponent would never check a Q or an A to them. In advanced Hold'em play on the flop, anything goes! As you try different things, you will find that the basic top ten strategy is a pretty good way to play Hold'em, with a twist—some well-timed intermediate and advanced moves along the way. The jackal lives in the advanced, wild, dangerous realm all the time, and it's very difficult to win when you play this way time in and time out.

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