Juha's Poker Tips

Before you decide to make the jump from an amateur player to pro player there are many things that you have to consider. Are you good enough, do you have a bankroll for it, are you able to handle the swings, how will you family take it and so on. Life as a professional poker player sounds glamorous and a lot of fun. It is, but it isn’t easy.

First of all you need to be very good. Just good is not enough. There are a lot of good amateurs out there and you have to be able to constantly make money playing if you go pro, just occasionally scoring is not enough. This is why you have to be good in cash games. It is very hard to be a professional tournament player only. You can run dry for a long time in tournaments no matter how good you are. And no matter how hard you work, sometimes it just ends up costing you more and more money and it gets very frustrating. If you are not good in cash games, I recommend that you practice more and don't quit your day job and go tournament pro only. Luck factor is big in tournaments, even if you play them for many years. The difference between a big payday and getting nothing is often one or two coin flips. Learn how to beat cash games!

As a pro you will need to be mentally tough, because there will be a lot of hard times when you feel that Lady Luck has abandoned you. Every pro has experienced bad times. I personally think that the toughness of a pro player is truly put to a test during bad times. Many pros go on tilt and waste a lot of their money, some even go broke. Not necessarily on poker, many of them go to craps and black jack tables and "donate" their money to the casinos. Sounds like an amateur thing to do, but believe me; it is common amongst pros too. There are actually surprisingly many professional players that have lost huge sums playing black jack and craps. Those games are very addictive, so it is better to never even try them after a bad session. This is even more common when people get drunk. Of course it is clear that if you play poker for a living you can’t use too much alcohol too often and certainly no drugs. So be prepared for bad times and stay out of those table games and other bad stuff!

One important thing is good physical condition. Mental and physical condition usually go hand in hand, meaning that if you have a good physical condition, you have a better chance to be able to handle mentally tough situations that eventually will occur in your poker career. It would be good to do some sports a few times a week. Gym, tennis, jogging, whatever you like. This helps to release some stress and frustration that poker causes and gives you a good physical feeling. If you are feeling good you usually play much better too. Most poker players are in a pretty bad physical shape, but most of the top poker players in the world are in a good physical condition too. Don`t underestimate the importance of your physical condition and start doing something about it if you haven`t yet! Try to find some sport that you like. For example I personally don`t like going to gym or jogging, but I love playing tennis, football and floorball. So find a sport that you like and start doing that a few times a week. This is actually the easiest thing to do better than most and get an advantage if you do it.

Poker is a game that keeps evolving and you need to be able to adapt your game all the time. A few years ago the most common game online was limit Hold’em. I have many friends who played for a living back then only playing limit. Now those games have pretty much dried out and everybody is playing NL or pot limit Omaha. Some of my friends have been able to adapt, but some have simply gone bust and quit playing poker. You never know how long your good games that exist now will last. It is vital to be able to play a few poker games well enough to make a living. I think the best game to play online at the moment is pot limit omaha, so if you are reading this and don’t play PLO yet, it’s time to learn it and start quickly!

If you have family, discuss with them about going pro before you do. Instead of the normal day time work that your family is used to, you will be playing a lot during late hours, just because that is the time when most games are running. You should separate your poker life from your normal life. If you are able to do this, you can relax much better when you have time off from poker and you will enjoy life much more too. You will also probably play better when your life is not all about poker. Even if you don't have family yet, it is hard to get one if you spend all your nights in the casinos. However if you are a good online player, you can be a pro and still spend time with your family when they need you. You can find a good game online almost anytime nowadays if you don`t play with highest stakes. It is also a lot faster way to make money if you are a winning cash game player. So play online!

If you have these things covered, you still need a reasonable bankroll before you decide to go pro. You will need to make money playing poker, because you won't have a regular income from your job anymore. You pay all your bills from your poker winnings. If you make only small money, you can go broke just by paying your normal bills! Build a big enough bankroll to manage through bad times and keep a separate bankroll for expenses. This separate bankroll should be big enough to cover one year of your normal expenses. A good bankroll also keeps stress away when you are playing and that helps a lot. If you have a small bankroll you will be playing with "scared money" and scared money is losing money! I would say a good bankroll is 100 full buy-ins in the level that you play, so if you are a $10/20 NL player you would need $200,000 plus some money in the side for expenses. If your game is pot limit Omaha you probably need even more than this, because swings in PLO are for sure much bigger than in NL.

You will also have to manage your bankroll wisely. Playing $10/20 and having a $200,000 bankroll doesn`t mean that you have to keep it online or in cash somewhere. You should invest most of it well and have a part of it in cash for poker. Get someone to help you invest the money, you can get a nice extra income per year if you do this wisely. However just like in poker, sometimes you lose money to your investments. So don`t think that you will automatically get profit to your investments every year.

Of course there are a lot of good things too. If you play poker for a living you can pretty much choose when you have time off and go for a holiday. If you travel to play live tournaments you can even take your holiday after playing poker. Many live tournaments are arranged in great locations. You shouldn’t play when you don’t feel like it, but the good thing is that you dont have to. You are your own boss. Instead of going to work you can go for a movie or whatever you like to do. If you know what you are doing you can earn some big bucks. In poker you can go from rags to riches in a short time.

Last but not least you need some real passion for the game. You need to love what you do, because if you don`t you won’t work hard enough to improve your game and you might become a losing player when others improve. The level of play has increased a lot during last two years. There are a lot of young and smart guys who spend basically all their free time learning the game and playing it. They get very experienced quickly by playing a lot of hands online too. There is a lot of competition out there. A common saying: "Poker really is a hard way to make an easy living" is very true. Prepare yourself well before quitting your day job and you have a much better chance to succeed!

If you want to be successfull in major tournaments, you have observe your opponents all the time. Try to remember how they play hands, are they tricky or straight forward, do they bluff and how often and what kind of starting hands they play and from which position. You will notice that pro players are able to dominate tables where players are tight and straight forward.

Tight and straight forward is often a good strategy in a 10-handed NL holdem table. However you should use it mostly against beginners. Many beginners are unbluffable, so that is why you need a good starting hand to play against them. When the stacks are deep weaker starting hands are ok too, because you might get a big pot if you hit. Of course there are many types of beginners, some of them are so tight that you can bluff them a lot, but when I notice that someone is a beginner, I normally dont try to bluff him/her before I can see that it can be done. This means that I usually let someone else try first. However when I do have a hand and I play against a beginner, I like to make pretty big, about pot size bets in every street for two reasons. I want to protect my against a draw and I want to get good value if I get paid. Beginners like to call a lot against players that they have seen on tv and I try to take advantage of this when I play against them.

When I play against pros I choose a totally different strategy and I think this is why I have been doing good in major tournaments. Most pros have a somewhat tight image of me, because that is how I play against most opponents. Against pros I bluff a lot more, they are able to make big laydowns when they think they are beat. Of course they are better in noticing bluffs, but if I have weak hands for the same reason. Especially when the blinds are high and I have an aggressive pro on my right I like to even reraise allin with any two cards if I feel that he is weak.

I often play my strong starting hands differently against pros too. This is of course a bit dangerous, but against aggressive pros I use this strategy a lot especially when I have position on them.

Many pros think you are drawing when you just keep calling and this is how you might be able to make them commit all their chips when they have no outs. They are the kind of players who will do it if they think that thats what it takes to win the pot.

Remember to observe your opponents and remember to play the player too, not only the cards!

Pocket jacks are a hard hand to play correctly.

Usually I just make a normal raise with pocket jacks, about 3 times the big blind if no one has entered the pot before me. If I get re-raised I have to use my instincts to know where I am. In general if I raise with jacks from a late position and get re-raised I am not going to pass my hand. Calling the raise or making another raise or an all in bet depends of the stack situation and tournament situation and mostly of course, the image that I have of my opponent.

However if I raise with jacks from an early or middle position and get re-raised by a somewhat tight player, I am prepared to fold pocket jacks if my instincts tell me to. You should really trust your instincts when making these decisions, first impression you get from the re-raiser is usually correct. People do re-raise with TT, 99, AK, AQ and even as a bluff sometimes, so do not automatically fold jacks even when a tight player re-raises you.

When I play big deep stack tournaments I will often see a flop with pocket jacks, but this is usually after someone has called my raise. Sometimes I like to just call with jacks too. This is when I have position on the original raiser and the stacks are deep. However if there is several limpers before me I will go ahead and make a big raise, about the size of the pot. I do not like to play jacks out of position, so if I have jacks in the blinds I will almost always make a raise or a re-raise to win the pot right there.

Playing jacks after the flop is pretty hard too. If you don't hit a set you usually have to think hard what to do. Let's say I called a raise from late position pre-flop in a major tournament. I am up against one opponent who bets to a rainbow flop of 4 8 K. I like to find out where I am right there by making a normal size raise by raising like ¾ of the pot. If he calls this raise I am pretty much done with the hand if it was a rainbow flop. If there is two of the same suit on the flop I might make another bet on turn if I put my opponent on a flush draw. Of course if I hit my jack on turn after he has called my raise I will continue with the hand, but otherwise I am ready to give it up and move on.

When I am lucky enough to flop a set with jacks I will play them aggressively too, especially when a T comes the flop with a J too. This is because this combination gives a lot of normal starting hands a straight draw. I will bet or raise about the size of the pot if this happens. I might slow play my set too, but this is when flop is not a dangerous one like 2 6 J rainbow.

Many decisions that I make with pocket jacks are close ones, so there are no specific rules about how to play them. If you want to be successful you have to be able to win a lot with pocket jacks and this requires a lot of skill.

Play your jacks aggressively, have no fear but trust your instincts when you have to make hard decisions with them!