We all know (or should!) that setting specific goals in all aspects of our lives is essential. After all, if you don’t know what you want you’re never gonna get it! So take some time to think about it and make them as specific as possible, even for shorter term things like new shoes

Everything from shoes to houses, boats and, not forgetting of course, winning the WSOP…or maybe just moving up to the next skill level (Set a goal of reading all our read our free online poker articles to learn how to do that!)

Now for a real example, for this we thank NoPay member Malverium for the article “Happy new Year” here it is -

It’s the start of a brand new year. It’s the time of the year to set goals and challenge yourself!

I’ve played poker casually for the past 4 years whilst studying. Never made it past 10 NL 6 Max and 25 NL full ring, but hopefully that will change this year!

To make this relatively short, I’ll just list the goals I’ll be working towards this coming year. Both in poker and life.

Poker Goals:

1. Make it to Mid-Stakes, haven’t decided if I want to play full ring or 6max.

But I’ll move up when I win $500 playing either 10 NL 6 Max or 25 NL Full Ring. Move up when I hit 1k, move down if I lose 8 BIs at 6 Max/4 BIs at Full Ring.

2. Achieve a decent win rate at all stakes.

3. Take some time to study poker every weekend.

4. Review my hands after every 10k hands.

Life Goals:

1. Find a job! I just finished studying and have been looking for a job with no success so far. So I need to get my act together and get a graduate/entry level position (Its pretty expensive living in Australia, I probably won’t go pro unless I earn 40k+ per year).

2. Get fit, go to the pool at least once a week, lose 5 kg (I’m not going to be too strict on how much I lose but I’d like to be fitter than I currently am, atm I’m about 24.3 BMI).

Summary:

• Make Mid-Stakes, Find a job, Get fit.
• When I’m playing I’m gonna enjoy it (play hard)
• When I’m working I’m gonna work hard

GL to everybody else in 2012 also . Will start grinding today or tomorrow.

This free online poker training article by NoPayPOKER member lostandbroke, thanks Well, I say training but it’s more of a school of hard knocks and reality

Heed thee now the erudition garnered from seven decades of observation – and seven minutes of thought. Poker has rules beyond the ken of average mortals. These rules are incomprehensible, immutable, and insensitive to the expectations of all.

These rules impose themselves upon Hold’em fanatics in a manner inversely proportional to need – the more you want it, the less likely you are to receive it. These rules defy the laws of probability, but prove Murphy’s Law.

They are as follows:

Rule #1: If two non-connected, non-suited small cards go all-in against a pair of aces, the board will flop two cards to match the small cards, and no ace.

Rule # 2: The turn card would have given you a win if you hadn’t folded at the flop.

Rule #3: You will draw a pair of aces and the board will flop the other two aces only when you are sitting out to take an important phone call.

Rule #4: You will see multiple hands containing a royal flush; none of them will be yours.

Rule #5: You will hit quads only if the opponent has a straight flush.

Rule #6: If you wish “gl” for the other players at the table, they will have it.

Rule #7: The river card will fill an Inside straight only if your opponent is the one trying for it.

Rule #8: The board will flop a nut flush only if the turn and river cards give your opponent a boat.

Rule #9: If a serious expert induces the novice to bet, the novice will win the hand.

Rule #10: If you take yourself too seriously, you won’t have any fun. Enjoy the game, no matter what frustration it throws at you.

In face to face poker room games it is easier to read your opponents than is the case online. In online play there is no way to see the many physical tells but don’t worry, online poker has a whole load of tells you can spot when you know what to look for and this free poker online guide is all about ‘em.

Speed of Play
In online poker games there is a time limit on making moves or else the players hand is auto moved all-in or folded. Due to this player speed of action is often a good Tell.

A lot of the time if a player makes a fast bet it is a sign of weakness, slow speed though often indicates strength because the player is busy figuring how best to play their good hand. Note how long opponents take to act and if you get to see their cards at showdown, see if you can determine what they were fast and slow with, that can help a lot next time round.

Do you give away speed tells? Ideally aim to take time for each play unless you can be a real master and mix speed no matter what type of hand you have.

Check Boxes and Auto Plays
A lot of poker rooms online have check boxes to allow players to set automated fold, raise any or call any instructions.

You can tell when a player has used a check box, because actions are immediate. If a player has checked “raise any” it indicates a strong hand. If it is “check” then it is likely weak. If it is “call any”, then the chance is good that it is a draw hand that is not completed but definitely not ready to fold.

While not 100% definite tells, over time you can draw some good conclusions from check box use especially with regular opponents.

Opponents Fold and Flop Percentage
This percentage can’t be exact but over several games you will be able to get a feel if some players fold a lot of hands or if they stick it in most pots.

A lot of folds equates normally to a good player but the player who stays in most pots is not good and can be hammered when you have a good hand.

Chat Box
Generally, if a player chatty player suddenly goes quiet he may well have got good cards.

Alternatively when a player is betting and gets antagonistic in chat it may well be a show of bluffing as the player hopes the show of “confidence” will bluff you off the table.

The chat classic is the “Tilt” player who is whining a lot. Tilted players can’t play good poker until they calm down so it’s a great time for you to push them into making errors.

Waiting for the Big Blind
You will often have the option to wait for the big blind to get to you when you join a table, or you can choose to post a matching big blind so you can get into play right away.

If a player is not patient enough to wait on the big blind to come around, it may indicate an overall lack of patience. Impatient players are loose players and loose players make mistakes.

On the other side players who wait are showing patience or maybe that they are tight fisted with their money, both are good qualities so note who waits and take care with them.

Novice Tells
Free online poker, micro and low stakes games will exhibit a lot of these.

The first is betting with a weak hand and feigning weakness with a strong hand. If you have pocket aces, don’t slow play them. A lot of novices will slow play such pockets and find themselves getting beaten on the flop, turn or river by players who make straights and trips.

Another beginners tell is when they wait one card after he has paired before betting. For example, the player gets a King on the flop and checks. The Turn shows a 2 yet the player starts betting hard. No way would he bet like that on a pair of 2′s so you can be pretty sure he paired the Kings on the flop. If you can beat it bet it.

Seeing Tells and acting on them takes practice, so start of by testing yourself and learning and play free online poker games at NoPayPOKER.com or the lowest stakes possible at PartyPoker before you start to risk real money.

Poker Ups and Downs By Shadowsee

You can’t win them all. Heard that all my life and know it to be true in every aspect of life. People who take fewer chances suffer fewer losses, but also they tend to miss out on opportunities. I have a cousin who married his first girlfriend, so you might say he went all in first hand. It looks like he won, great kids and still married 25 years later. Of course that’s just how it looks, never know whether he or his wife ever wonder if they missed anything.

What’s that got to do with poker? Well, if you don’t bet u don’t lose, you win one hand and call it good you are a winner, so to speak, with a 100% winning average, but man it’s going to be dull from then on. To get the full, rich experience of a veteran player, you have to take some risks.

Having said all of that, and there’s no charge for it by the way, I need to inform you that there is a down side to taking risks. Sometimes you lose. Oh, I know, you’re thinking “duh”. It’s funny though how upset we get sometimes even when we know that losing is always a possibility. People get so mad at times they don’t speak to anyone, or even worse they do, and the things being said just aren’t nice.

That’s the main purpose behind this article really, to point out that the rewards of winning are sweeter for the pain of losing, and that you have to take the good with the bad, even better if you can do it gracefully.

Not only will you have more fun that way, but you will be more fun to play with. You may have friends here, friends who will be with you through all the ups and downs, in poker and in life.

*** And if losing money is too much of a risk then that’s what NopayPOKER is here for. Play free online poker for fun with your only risk being your time NOT money (and you can win some real money too)

In this free online poker coaching lesson learn how to play low pocket pairs. 2/2 through to 9/9 are what we define as low pocket pairs and they will, believe it or not (and you will believe by the end of this article) win you more money long term than any other pocket cards.

More than pocket A/A, pocket K/K, pocket Q/Q? How is that possible you shout! It is. They will.

And they’re good against all skill levels of players too and especially good for taking out “know it all” donks and maniacs.

Why Are Low Pockets So Good?

First lets look at some base facts and rules of pockets pairs and low pockets in particular.

1. You have about a 6% chance of being dealt a pocket pair of any type.
2. This equates to approx. every 16 or 17 hands.
3. With a pocket pair you have about a 1 in 8 chance to get a set at the flop (3 of a kind).
4. So 6% followed by 1 in 8 comes to you having a post set flop once per 133 hands.
5. At a 10 player table that equates to once every 13 small/big blind bets you deposit on.

 

Low pocket pairs are playable from all table positions however ONLY:

1. At a cost that does not exceed the big blind from Early Position.
2. Over 2x the big blind from Middle Position
3. 3x big blind from Late Position.
4. Plus, the low pocket pairs are never a pre-flop cause for raising the big blind.

Should you limp in from Early Position, or if you have called a 2x BB from Middle Position, and there has been a raise to 3x the BB, and there are five plus players left in the hand,then you should call 3x the BB bet from Early and Middle position.

Why?

When there are five plus players left there is a higher probability the flop will show 2 or 3 low cards. This is true primarily because it’s logical to assume that the 5 or more players currently in the hand each hold one or more paint cards.

Now, the one set we end up with becomes a powerful weapon. This is especially so if it is a 2-9 set. Yes, Aces down to Tens are serious weapons too, but the chance to put a big hit on the opposition lies more in the lower pocket pairs, rather than the higher pocket pairs.

That’s because a lot of players don’t fear lower cards in the flop, now do you see where we are going with this?

This example hand illustrates the point.

1. You’re seated Late Position with pocket 5c/5h.
2. There is a ‘bad’ player with Jh/7c and a ‘good’ player with Ad/Qd.
3. Our better player raises 3x the big blind and the poorer one calls, you also call, everyone else folds.
4. The flop shows Ah/Jd/5s; you have made a set of 5′s.
5. The ‘good’ player, again bets 3x the big blind.
6. The ‘bad’ player, raises by a factor of three; crazy as he’s holding the middle pair, and the ‘good’ player has betted into the flopped Ace.
7. You call and so does the good player.
8. Now it is the Turn and the card is a 7d.
9. It gives the ‘good’ player a nut flush draw (Ad/Qd/Jd/7d), and he holds the high board pair (Ad/Ah).
10. It gives the ‘bad’ player two pairs (Jacks over Sevens).
11. You have your set of 5c,5h,5s.

At this point you may be concerned that the River will bring a card to fill the flush or a J or a 7.

But do not be.

1. Left in the deck are 9 flush maker cards and 4 full house maker, 13 in all minus the last 5.
2. It’s a flush-maker but will also give you quad Fives.
3. So there are 12 cards left that can be dealt that will make you lose and 34 that will win it for you.
4. You’re about a 3 to 1 favorite to win.

The river card is one of the 34 so is no use to the others. The ‘bad’ player moves all in and you call and take a large pot.

So how was it that this pocket 5 situation was so good?

It’s because the set of Fives was hidden; as will always be the case when pocket 2/2, 3/3, 4/4, 5/5, 6/6, 7/7, 8/8, and 9/9 are turned into sets by the flop (1 in 133; although that includes sets of Tens, Jacks, Queens, Kings, and Aces).

Plus the fact that no one could have read the cards. You almost always slow-play it such that opponents, ‘bad’ or ‘good’, cannot identify the powerful set the flop created.

The power of low pockets is not very well known but is used by all pro players. After all low pocket pairs win more money at a poker table than any other two cards so why shout about it!

So add these rules to your playable pockets reference card (see Playable Pockets Tutorial or Building Bankroll part 2) now and start practicing hard and play free online poker games at NoPayPOKER.com!