Poker

There is a lot you have to think about when you’re about to host poker tournaments. Of course, you have to buy a poker set, but that’s not nearly enough. It takes a lot of planning if you want the poker night to run smoothly. These are some pointers provided by bandarq that you can use to host your poker tournament successfully. 

Buy-in size 

The size of the buy-in of course depends on how much you’re the players that are going to play in the tournament are willing to gamble with.

It is a good idea to have a lower buy-in if you are going to allow re-buys and add-ons. Starting stacks The amount of poker chips each participating player gets at the start of a tournament is normally 1,000 or 1,500.

These are the standard starting stacks in online poker tournaments, and it is naturally easier to run a tournament with conventional values that the participants are used to. This will make the betting patterns recognizable to the participating players and the game will run smoothly. Chips values It’s good to use chips of four different colors in a tournament. Each color will have its value assigned to it. $5, $25, $100, and $500 is a good structure. Of course, you can make them lower, to the amounts your guests may prefer to play Working out a blinds scheme It’s preferable to start off with low blinds. If the blinds are too high the game will be more about luck than skill.

At the start of a tournament, the big blind should be around1% of the starting stack size.

If you want a faster, more aggressive game the big blind can be 2-3% of the starting stack size. How long blinds periods you use naturally depend on how much time you have. The blind structure should not be altered during a poker tournament. Sometimes antes are used to speed up the game. Allowing re-buys and add-ons Players that come from away will not find it very enjoyable if they’re eliminated on a bad beat quickly and there is no chance to get back into the game. However, you have to consider that the possibility to buy more chips will affect the way the game is played.

Players normally take more risks when re-buys and add-ons are available and the game might get rather wild. Usually, the re-buy period lasts for an hour, and the typical re-buy is either the same as the buy-in or half that amount. You can have either one (or another specified amount) re-buy or unlimited re-buys during the re-buy period. An alternative to re-buys and add-ons is to arrange cash games for the eliminated players (if you have the space to do so). The pay-out structure Payout structures vary from conservative to top-heavy (in these cases a high percentage of the prize money goes to the winner). Many players prefer top-heavy payouts since that will give them a chance to win a big prize pot. If there are going to be many inexperienced players in the game, a flatter structure is better. This will give everyone a chance to win at least something.

Every poker pro knows they are about 32% to hit an open-ended straight draw and 34% to hit their flush draw, but where the novice player makes a mistake is believing that they should always go for it since, “I’ll hit it 1/3 of the time.”

The first thing that will help you is to start calculating odds when playing poker instead of using percentages. Percentages are simple to calculate, but I don’t think they are as useful when trying to make the correct poker decision. 33% is 2-1…2 failures for 1 success. By dividing your bet into the size of the pot you get the odds on your bet…for example, $5 call when the pot is $20 is 4-1. 2-1 is better than 4-1…an easy call….getting used to doing it this way will help you immensely.

Let me set up a scenario to be referred to throughout this section:

$1/2 no limit texas holdem. You are first in from middle position with Ac Th and raise to $5. The button calls and the BB calls. Pot is not $16. Flop comes 2h 9h Ad. You are confident that your A’s are good, and the BB checks to you. What do you do?

When you are playing at situs poker online site, the use of the strong hands will offer the benefit. The use of the skills and excellence will offer the best bonuses and deals will offer the desired results. The checking of the bonuses and deals will deliver the best results to the gamblers.

You should definitely bet to protect your hand from a flush draw, but how much? The odds of your opponent hitting a flush draw is 2-1, but only when they are going to see both the river and the turn. What you really need to know for this bet is what are the odds of someone making their hand on the next card. 47 unseen cards, 9 hearts, 38 non-hearts. 38/9 = 4.2. Roughly 4-1 odds against.

What about if you bet $5? The pot would be $21, so anyone behind you could call getting better than 4-1 odds. They would be absolutely correct to call. You just made a mistake that could cost you the hand.

What if you bet $30? The pot would be $46, giving your opponent 1.5-1 odds. Most likely your opponents would fold and you would win the pot….so you would likely win $10 (you invested $35 + $1 rake). Not a terrible outcome.

What if you bet about 1/2 the pot, $8. They would have to call $8 to win $24. That’s 3-1. Would your opponent fold a flush draw for $8? At low limit hold’em, probably not, and they would be WRONG to make this call! They are taking a 4-1 chance of winning 3-1 on their bet. Let’s bet $8 and see what happens.

You bet $8, button calls, BB folds. Pot is $37.

Now let’s assume a non-flush card comes on the turn. You are once again in the same situation. How much should you bet to protect your hand? The odds of them hitting their flush on the river is still about 4-1, so you need to make another bet about 1/2-3/4 the pot. You bet $20. Now you’ve put your opponent in a tough spot. Their (wrong) decision to call on the flop made the pot quite large, but $20 is a big bet. If they fold, great! If they call they are making another wrong decision. If they fold you win over $30. If they call you stand the chance of winning over $50!

Betting in this manner (1/2 – 3/4 pot bets) forces your opponent to either quit the hand or make a mistake. Anytime you can do that you are playing good poker. Of course, you will not win every time you do this, but as you can see, you’re playing the odds and will be a winning poker player in the long run.

Be smart if the flush card does come. Let’s say the turn was a flush card. You check. Your opponent checks (they are trying to disguise their flush). Great. You have not invested any more money and get to see a free card. River comes, check again. They bet, you fold. You lost only $13. You have minimized the losses when they do hit, and maximized the winnings when they miss, which will happen more than 60% of the time.

How about when you’re the one on the draw? Answer, don’t fall into the trap you’ve put your opponent in. In general, drawing hands go way down in value when playing NL, so be very careful. You must also consider the number of player involved. The more players, the better the odds, so drawing hands become more attractive, but be aware if you’re not the last to act. A big re-raise could really kill your hand and force you to fold after you called a bet, not good.