Whether you just play free poker or play with house sized buy-ins the Set is one of the hardest poker hands of all to read. A Set is made ip of a pocket pair plus one of the Community cards that has the same rank as your pocket pair. For example, if you have 5-5 and the Board reads 5-4-10-J-K, you have a Set of Fives. Sets are unreadable because most players are accustomed to reading (a) two different hole cards, (b) high cards or overpairs, (c) draws that complete the Board, or (d) cards anyway related to the Board cards.

Our hand reading habits generally a mix of limiting possible hands to the given characteristics of the board/community, how would you put someone on 5-5 or 4-4 when it is much easier to put him on A-K (for top pair, best kicker), A-Q (for a made Straight), or K-10 or 5-4 (for Two-Pair), or even A-A (a high pair)? Or maybe you’ll put him on one Five, say, 6-5. But on two Fives or two Fours? This is why Sets are very potent in Boards which have no Straight or Flush potential.

But lets suppose in a Flop of Q-7-2 with no Straight or Flush possibilities, you have 3-3. You check (hoping to trap him), the other player bets. You raise all in then he immediately calls and reveals Q-Q. You thought your opponent had A-Q or K-Q. How is this possible? It’s possible. Even in this spot you are more susceptible.

Since there are no Straight or Flush potentials your opponent will fold cards that didn’t fit into the Board cards. If you read hands in line with the criteria above, you might put your opponent on A-Q, K-Q, or even Q-7 (can you go as far as 7-2?!). Here because you are the one who moved all-in, the outcome of the hand is not fully on your control; it’s up to whether your opponent calls or not. But suppose the situation is reversed. The player with the Q-Q checks, you bet, then the response is a raise all-in. What would you do?

When you find yourself slammed in a situation like this (which usually occurs on the Flop) on a cash game, take it as it is. Pay him off. Another time you will have the Q-Q, another player will have the 2-2, and you will be paid off. But in a tournament, you have plenty of givens to consider (and you might want to consider these even in an ordinary cash game). Compare your stack sizes relative to each other. If the difference is great, expect one of you to put his chips in the middle.

A Set may be the best hand both of you can have to get a double-up. If you possess the smaller Set get eliminated, attribute it to bad luck. However, assuming both of you have stacks above chip average, and you are put to a decision costing you all or virtually all your chips. You have 2-2. You aren’t likely to be blinded out in a few hands.

You may want to reason out: I have a Set. He raised me enough to put me all-in, or almost. He may do it with Q-7, (and whether your opponent had Q-7 or not will depend on what happened preflop. If no raise occurred it may be with Q-7, and you can safely call. Whether the other guy had 7-7 or not can also come under similar scrutiny) or if there is a raise, it may be with A-Q.

Now, top pair, top kicker is a weak hand to risk an above-average stack. And there’s no Straight and Flush incoming, so the all-in could be made only with an especially strong hand. It might also be with A-A or with K-K (most probably it is) but it might also be just with Q-Q. If I put him on those three hands, there is a 2/3 chance I’m right, but a 1/3 chance of wrong, and when I’m wrong I will be busted. So I’ll fold.

If you possess the middle Set (Set of Sevens), the same analysis may also apply. But you will be a lot safer because there is only one Set to kill you instead of the two possible Sets a while ago. If you possess the Set of Queens, enjoy! The above analysis is agonizing and painstaking, particularly when it all amounts to giving up one of the most valued hands in Hold’Em.

Reading Sets Summary

If you are new to poker then know this seems a lot to take in, the fact is though that while poker basics are easy to learn it is harder to be good at things like reading hands. For this reason most low stakes and NoPayPOKER.com tables are inhabited by manic “chip flingers” who can’t be bothered to learn. They are happy to play for what they think is fun when in fact it’s a lot more fun to win money

Ironically the fact that so many players play at this low skill level is excellent news for you. That’s because once you learn to play poker with above average skill and are able to combat the “all-in-all the time” donk maniacs then you can take them apart in coldly calculated massacres anytime you like. This can mean really good easy money in low stakes money online games and in free online poker tournaments games that pay out real cash such as those found at http://www.NoPayPOKER.com.

As ever practice makes perfect so read, understand and play free poker tournaments to learn how to play poker tournaments good and get your skills finely honed.

The standard (and indeed common sense) poker strategy followed by average skill poker players who mostly play free poker tournaments or low stakes and, for some reason find themselves up against strong players is not to play at all.

Normally this is not a problem, in cash games, when the novice realizes he or she is out of depth all the player has to do is bailout and find a more suitable table. But in tournament poker, it is not so simple to avoid being trapped on a table with some good or even exceptionally talented poker players.

In this article you will learn why good players will generally easily beat the novice, and, if you are a novice or less advanced player what you can try to do to survive and even prosper if you find yourself circled by hungry sharks!

A good player can normally easily beat the novice as he knows the patterns novice player tend to follow, given the Board cards, the novice’s actions and the position. Good players can also put them on a hand.

They will know if a novice player is holding a suited connector; a pocket pair, or even, in some extreme cases, a Set. The good player knows to play a Straight weak or even fold it when the Board pairs and the novice suddenly dumps down loads of his chips.

First lets understand how the novice tends to play so we can understand why the good players have such advantage. For the purpose of this we will say that a player wins a pot when, (a) he wins the hand in a showdown or (b) he makes all his opponents fold. If we want our novice player to win a pot against a good player, what kinds of hands should he play, and how?

For example, if the novice aims to win the showdown. Then he has to play the good players through the preflop, turn and river. At each step, simply by reason of experience, the good player is able to get more information about the novice player than the novice can get from the good player.

If the good player has more information, then he knows immediately whether the novice player has a good hand or not. He can continue to showdown and probably win a big pot, if he keeps on value-betting our novice. Or he can lose a little pot, if he slows down and just checks. Or he is able to make the novice fold.

Imagine our novice now tries (b) to make his opponents fold. (Let us assume the Board can help him only a little, and his hand, from the flop up to the river, will not be of showdown quality.) Throughout the flop, turn, and the river, the good player will extract more inferences from the Board cards than the novice player will.

If our novice, who usually has the tendency to get excited, overrepresents a hand unnecessarily, then he will just be called by the good player (unless he plays really strongly, but he can’t overdo this either).

From all of these, we gather that the pieces of information needed to make a decision is:

1. Your cards.

2. Your perception of the opponents’ cards.

3. The Board cards.

4. Tells your opponent provides.

5. Tells you give away to your opponent.

6. Previous tendencies of each player.

7. Position.

Both the novice and the good player has (1) and (3), but the good player’s judgment is generally more accurate with all these criteria. A good player, for instance, will believe that 8-7 (his cards) is not so nice-looking in a flop of 10-7-3 (the Board cards), but a novice player may. As for (4), (5), and (6) which stems from (1), (2) and (3), the good player is usually more aware of these. And good players care more for (7) than novice ones.

So if our novice really wants to play a pot against a good player, he cannot really rely fully on the information above, for he cannot interpret them well. So our novice should look for a spot in which the good player also cannot rely on most of the information above, so that they will be on equal footing. When is it? Answer: Preflop. How to play? All-in.

Preflop, your perception of the opponent’s cards is less accurate than after the flop falls. Also, since there are no Board cards yet, tells are less reliable. Finally, because a novice is less likely to have previous tendencies resulting from experience, the good player has little hold on (6). And preflop all-ins are dependent on hand strength mainly than position.

By moving all-in you can make your opponent fold (which is a win) or entice him to a showdown. Don’t call yourself all-in, however, unless you’ve got a premium hand. Once your opponent does this move, if he is a good opponent, he knows you are vulnerable.) When he does want a showdown, he is deprived of postflop information that will increase his chances of making an good decision. At this point, even though good player is still good, he has to play in terms of novice play.

The good hands the novice may have are still the traditional all-in hands: A-A, K-K, Q-Q, etc. A-K (or similar) is quite shaky, but if you can lull someone with 7-7 to play with you, you are still about 50-50 with him.Whereas if you take him to the Flop, he will have more opportunities to play his 7-7 better than you would play your A-K, and you will be defeated most of the time. Let us say your chance to win above is just 25% postflop; why don’t you take the 50-50 instead?

In summary

If you are new to poker then know this seems a lot to take in, the fact is though that while poker is easy to learn it is harder to be good at, hence the mad “chip flinging” you will see on many free online poker tables. Most people it seems can’t be bothered to learn, they are happy to play for what they call fun when in fact it’s a lot more fun to learn to play and win more often!.

Yes it is crazy that so many play with so little skill, but it is also very good news for you as a player who aims to learn to play well. The reason why is that when you really learn how to play poker well you can go mercenary and hunt the “fun donks” down in low stakes real money games as well as free online poker sites that pay out real money while you happily build your skills and bankroll!

To make this work first, play free poker tournaments to learn to play poker online free where you can learn while you lose but without losing real money, then once ready to can move up to low stakes and start to make some serious poker cash!

When you have a big hand like KK and a good large stack preflop what is the best way to play it? And how might the other players react? Whether you play free poker for pennies or high stakes in Monaco this is a critically important situatio and you need to know how to play it best.

For our example we will look at an example from the World Series of Poker:

BLINDS 40,000/80,000

A has As-10c moves all-in (Pot 1.296m)
B has K-K reraises to 5m (Pot 6.296m)

B has two options here. He can call and wait for an opponent to go all-in, though that would make him think…

Could it be A-A? Or Q-Q? If it was Q-Q there is a slight chance he might fold K-K, and regret it. But a big reraise can drive Q-Q or lower out, like what happened to another player:

C has Jd-Jc

(C’s comments on B’s hand were: “Why did you make it so much? … You like your hand that much?”) If C calls, it’s for all of his chips.

C may think that B has A-K, but there are two all-ins in front of him, and one of them might be A-X (and with A-X he is still not safe) or a pair, but a suspiciously heavy raise to about 60 times the big blind is almost always a signal for A-A or K-K. So C could wait for a better opportunity than now.

C folds (Pot 2.39m)

C’s fold was brilliant, after the reraise, but it will still be brilliant even if B did not reraise. B might bet again on the Flop and C may not continue and just let go of the chips.

B’s reraise will work if he has A-A or K-K, but I doubt it if he will do the same with A-K or Q-Q, but it may have the same effect of making C fold. As for A, let us wish for his good health. B won the hand later.

In summary - Big Hand Preflop
It takes time to learn how to play poker online or offline at a level above the unthinking, uneducated “chip flinging” seen at many tables.

Yes it is mad that so many players play with so little skill, but it is also very good news for you as a player who is learning to play correctly. The reason why is that when you really learn how to play poker well you can turn mercenary and hunt them down in droves in low stakes real money games as well free poker games sites that pay out real money like NoPayPOKER and happily build your skills and bankroll!

To make this work first, learn how to play poker on free poker games tables where you can learn while you lose but without losing real money, then once ready to can move up to low stakes and start to get rich!

In this free online poker games guide we’re going to reconstruct a hand, specifically in this article the poker hand know as the big hand.

The point of poker hand reconstruction is to learn how to play poker better by understanding how the hand works.

Then you can relate this to the context of play. From here you can begin to determine the motives of the other players for their actions, based on the cards that fell, your betting patterns, their player types, their chip stacks, the pot size, and many other factors.

The result I hope is that you can play that type of hand better in the future and win more money!

For this poker hand analysis we will examine the “Big Hand”

BLINDS 1,000/2,000 - (Pot 5,400)

PREFLOP:

A has Js-9s, calls 2,000

B has Ks-Kc, raises to 14,000

A calls 12,000 (Pot 33,400)

A just initially calls, hoping that there will also be many callers because he has suited connectors and wants to get sufficient pot odds.

B, though might interpret the call from early position as A-A or Q-Q, and because he has a large stack (the two are the largest on the table) he can afford to raise a bit more, because if the other player reraises and he thinks the other one has A-A, he can fold.

Plus, K-K is a little bit more shaky if an Ace falls on the flop, so this can work as a tester raise. A calls, because he has a big stack and can afford it.

FLOP: Kh-9d-Kd

A checks

B checks (Pot 33,400)

Suddenly B has Quad Kings! A checks, because he has only a Nine, and can proceed carefully if B bets. B, hoping to conceal his unbeatable hand, checks too.

Paired boards are commonly good bluffing situations. For example, a 8-8-3 board is good for bluffing because on a, say, J-7-3 board, there are three cards which can pair one of them, and a bluff will be less effective.

But on the 8-8-3 board, bluffing has big benefits since there are only two cards which will conceivably help anyone, and also anyone there with a Three will be not as likely to call. (Only an Eight will do.)

But with a board with bigger cards like our Flop, B might have bet, but after that, A will be less likely to put him on a bluff (and more likely on a made hand) because he may have, say, K-10, and we play big cards more than small ones.

B doesn’t want A to back out of the pot. So B just checks.

Also, with two Diamonds B should check in the hope that A will put him on a flush draw so that if the flush doesn’t come, A will bet or raise to push B away, and B can gain extra chips.

TURN: Kh-9d-Kd-5h

A checks

B bets 20,000

A raises to 70,000

B calls 50,000 (Pot 173,400)

B still has invincible Quads, A still has Two-Pair. B could have now put A on the Nine or a draw, so B bets 20,000 so that A will call.

But since during the flop B may have represented a Diamond flush draw in A’s perspective, A raised to 70,000 so that B will move away.

B just calls, since there are two draws already, and B might want to represent one of them again so that A will try another bluff on the river.

RIVER: Kh-9d-Kd-5h-9h

A checks

B moves all-in 106,000 (Pot 279,300)

A folds

B still has Quads, but A is now in danger because he has a bottom Full House. A King can kill him.

What A is hoping, though, is that B back-doored a Heart Flush and just check it along with him.

But B moves all-in. That is a very intriguing move by B. A solid player would value-bet this (sat, 40,000 on a pot of 173,400) and A can just call it.

It is OK to represent a Flush here, since the board is double-paired, which can destroy Flushes since the board is just one card off a Full House.

So what I am thinking is: B moved all-in because (1) he wanted A to think they may have the same hand or that his hand is weaker, like a Flush. B’s play on the Flop and the Turn was weak, so A may not have put B on a King but likely on the Flush draw we are talking about.

B wants a call. B now hopes that A backdoored a Flush too and also that he thinks his all-in is just a bluff, but A is in trouble as a result of sudden strong play.

It was psychologically jarring.

Did B hide that King or not? A might think that better hands could come later, so he folds.

Also (2) B may not want a showdown; he did not want to show the two Kings; he wanted to trouble the minds of A and other opponents.

If they saw how he played K-K it will be added information. He wants to keep them guessing.

You should play more unpredictably in order to gain chips later than to gain chips now, but be unable to get some later. I believe this is a brilliant reason.

Concluding the Big Hand

It takes time to learn how to play poker online or offline at a level above the unthinking, uneducated “chip flinging” seen at many tables.

Yes it is mad that so many players play with so little skill, but it is also very good news for you as a player who is learning to play correctly. The reason why is that when you really learn how to play poker well you can turn mercenary and hunt them down in droves in low stakes real money games as well play free poker on line sites that pay out real money like NoPayPOKER and happily build your skills and bankroll!

As ever practice makes perfect so read, understand and learn to play hold em on the free online poker tables to get it nailed.