There’s a lot going on when you sit down to a cash game, and obviously you’ve got to be aware of all of it if you have any intention of being successful. 

When you’re going to play – before you even sit down – you’ve got to decide how much you’re going to buy in for. It might seem like it goes without saying, but you’ve got to be aware of everyone’s chip stack when you decide where to start. For me, I generally like to start out at least equal with – or buy in for more – than the biggest stack at the table.

Another part of this is recognizing who’s properly bankrolled at the table. If there’s somebody that’s playing on case money, then he’s generally a good opponent to pick on: they’re the one’s taking a shot at the game. If they don’t succeed, they’re going to drop down or they’re done for a while. Recognizing this lets you manipulate certain situations and take full advantage of them.

As far as recognizing opponents goes, one of the most important things that you have to do whenever you sit down is develop an accurate profile of each person at the table. Profiling is a matter of getting exactly who all of the other players at the table are and how they’re playing. This is critical and you need to learn to do it quickly.

For example, if you sit down with an older guy that’s retired and just there to have fun, you know that you can probably get away (with) a lot. Of course, you could be sitting with a guy who looks exactly the same, but has been around the block more than a few times and has been playing poker for years. You need to be able to figure out the difference between the two real fast. A lot of this is intuitive, but it’s all about recognizing experience in a player; figuring out who’s strong and who’s weak. Also keep in mind that just because someone is an unknown doesn’t mean that they aren’t good – you’ve always got to watch how they act, what they do at the table and listen to what they say.

This is a little different with players coming from an online background. If you’ve got an opponent with a reputation as a really strong online player, it’s probably a good idea to sit back and take a more passive approach until you figure out how they play live. I think that this is definitely a case where live players have an edge over online players. For myself, I’m accurate about 90% of the time when I put someone on being a particular type of player: solid, an amateur, a seasoned pro.

Of course, the flip-side of this is how they perceive you as a player. For me, if I’ve got any notoriety at a game, people recognize or greet me by name, maybe even comment on my play, I can use it to establish an image as an aggressive player that might check/raise with nothing. If I pick up on that, I can make moves like betting 4K into a 2K pot and get paid off with middle pair because this person thinks that I’m playing with nothing. On the other hand, if someone doesn’t think that about me or doesn’t know how I play, I have to adjust accordingly – it all depends on how I see their read on me.

Once you know how people view you, then it’s just a reverse psychology game. You can adapt to that in so many ways – this is one of the strongest parts of my game. It really lets me manipulate the table to my advantage.

If you can keep all of this in mind, you should be able to figure out what and who you’re dealing with right off the bat. Take full advantage of it, and you’ll be the one getting paid off.

Post from: Poker From The Rail

The Pros Speak: Brad Booth

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1. Heads Up: Erik Seidel Versus Brad Booth
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Category	Erik Seidel	Brad Booth	Survey Says
Career Earnings	More than $8 million	Just under $700K	What’s money got to do with it? $8 million, $700K, it’s all the same to us (but, then again, we do get paid in pesos). To be fair, Booth makes a majority of his winnings in cash games, so who knows how much money he’s really made? That little caveat aside, Seidel takes down the first category.
Major Titles	Eight WSOP gold bracelets	None	Booth’s main focus is obviously not tourneys, so it’s hard to fault him for being so far behind Seidel. But we will anyway. Chalk another one up for Big-E.
Tournament Play	Yes please!	When does the side game start?	Seidel is one of the greatest living tourney players in the world and Booth is, well, Canadian. Guess where we’re going with this one. Seidel three, Booth zero.
Cash Game Play	Maybe later.	Let’s get it on!	Booth is one of the best cash game players out there. Plus, we hear he might be Canadian. And while Seidel can certainly hold his own in any cash game, we’re going to have to channel our inner maple leaf and give this one to Booth.
Playing Style	American Pie	Canadian Mongoose	Thus we arrive at the portion of this post where I have to start making stuff up (for the sake of my own amusement, of course). The Captain informs me that a mongoose is one of those critters that eat cobras, so that seems pretty cool. On the other hand, American Pie makes me think about that crappy movie where the kid sticks his Jerry Yang in the pie (or maybe I’m just bitter because I lost my virginity to a Danish). At any rate, let’s give this one to Booth because, well, he’s Canadian.
Best Game	Yahtzee!	Ball and Cup (the Canadian national pastime).	No, I will not be making any comments concerning balls or cups – let’s just say I had a bad experience once (OK, maybe twice). On the other hand, I’m a hell of a Yahtzee player. That’s the one where everyone runs around and kicks the crap out of the smallest kid in the class, right? Or am I thinking of Monopoly? Oh well, the point is… there is no point. And this has absolutely nothing to do with poker. Hey, at least I tried. I’m going to give this one to Booth because, well, he’s Mexican (note: Booth may or may not be Mexican, we can’t confirm this).
Nickname	None	Yukon Brad	We need to give a nickname to Seidel. How about Erik “Sly” Seidel; that would be cool. I wish my nickname was Sly. Instead I seem to be stuck with “Useless lump of crap.” This round goes to Booth because, well, he actually has a nickname. Yukon Brad has now taken the lead, four to three.
Outside Poker	Featured in the movie Rounders.	Booth once declared that he’d played poker every day for 14 years straight, so we’re gonna go out on a limb and say he doesn’t do much outside the world of poker.	Rounders is one of the quintessential poker movies. How could we go against Worm and Teddy KGB here? We will splash the pot anytime we feel like it! Notch one up for Seidel, the score is even going into the final frame.
I Pledge Allegiance…	… to America, the greatest country that ever was or ever will be!	… to Canada, um, what can we say about Canada? Oh yeah, we like your maple syrup. It goes quite well with a nice Danish.	USA! USA! USA! Need we say more? Mission accomplished! Seidel takes the match thanks to the greatest country on earth. God bless you America, from sea to shining sea (I think a tear just rolled down my cheek).

So that’s that. Seidel advances to the next round by a count of five to four. By the way people, I’m not ashamed to admit that I am half Canadian. So it’s OK for me to poke a little fun at the biggest little country in the world (or I am thinking of Reno?). I shall end this piece the only way I know how, with a quote from The Simpsons: “I come from Canada; they say I’m slow, eh?” Until next week…

Post from: Poker From The Rail

Heads Up: Erik Seidel Versus Brad Booth

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