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40 Poker Tips From Sun Tzu’s Art of War

Posted on Oct 11, 2009 by Gugel.

Sun Tzu was an ancient Chinese military tacitian.  His military strategy masterpiece, Art of War ($2.99), has some pretty solid advice for poker players.  Here are 40 great poker tips from Sun Tzu:

Deception

1. All warfare is based on deception.
2. When able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.
3. Hold out baits to entice the enemy.  Feign disorder and crush him.
4. Do not swallow bait offered by the enemy.
5. Simulated disorder postulates perfect discipline; simulated fear postulates courage simulated weakness postulates strength.
6. At first, then, exhibit the coyness of a maiden until the enemy gives you an opening; afterwards, emulate the rapidity of a running hare, and it will be too late for the enemy to oppose you.

Table Selection

1. Attack him where is unprepared; appear where you are not expected.
2. Take advantage of the enemy’s unreadiness, make your way by the unexpected routes, and attack unguarded spots.
3. If he is secure at all points, be prepared for him.  If he is in superior strength, evade him.
4. He will win who, prepared himself, waits to take the enemy unprepared.
5. He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight.
6. The rule is not to besiege walled cities if it can possibly be avoided.
7. He will win who knows how to handle both superior and inferior forces.
8. So in war, the way is to avoid what is strong and to strike at what is weak.
9. A clever general avoids an army when its spirit is keen, but attacks it when it is sluggish.
10. No ruler should put his troops in the field to gratify his own spleen.
11. When it was to their advantage, they made a forward move; when otherwise, they stopped still.
12. Move not unless you see an advantage; use not your troops unless there is something to be gained; fight not unless the position is critical.

Psychology & Tilt

1. If your opponent is hot-tempered, seek to irritate him.  Pretend to be weak and he may grow arrogant.
2. The clever combatant imposes his will on the enemy, but does not allow the enemy’s will to be imposed on him.
3. If the enemy is taking his ease, he can harass him; if well supplied with food, he can starve him out; if quietly encamped, he can force him to move.
4. Disciplined and calm, to await the appearance of disorder and hubbub amongst th enemy – this is the art of retaining self-discipline.
5. Water shapes its course according to the nature of the ground over which it flows; the soldier works out his victory in relation to the foe whom he is facing.
6. Tactical maneuvering consists of turning the devious into the direct, and the misfortune into gain.
7. A whole army may be robbed of its spirit; a commander-in-chief may be robbed of his presence of mind.
8. To be near the goal while the enemy is still far from it, to wait at ease while the enemy is toiling and struggling, to be well-fed while the enemy is famished – this is the art of husbanding one’s strength.
9. Dangerous faults which may affect a general: Recklessness, cowardice, hasty temper, delicacy of honor (which is sensitive to shame).
10. It is only if one is thoroughly acquainted with the evils of war that care thoroughly understand the profitable way of carrying it on.
11. When a fire breaks out inside to enemy’s camp, respond at once with an attack from without.

Variance

1. If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.  If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat.  If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.
2. To secure ourselves against defeat lies in our own hands, but the opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself.
3. Thus the good fighter is able to secure himself against defeat, but cannot make certain of defeating the enemy.
4. He wins the battle by making no mistakes.  Making no mistakes is what establishes the certainty of victory, for it means conquering an enemy that is already defeated.
5. Prohibit the taking of omens, and do away with superstitious doubts.  Then, until death itself comes, no calamity need be feared.
6. A kingdom that has once been destroyed can never come again into being; nor can the dead ever be brought back to life.

General Poker Strategy

1. Ponder and deliberate before you make a move.
2. The skillful tactician may be likened to the shauai-jan.  Now the shuai-jan is a snake that is found in the ChUng mountains.  Strike at its head, and you will be attacked by its tail; strike its tail, and you will be attacked by its head; strike at its middle, and you will be attacked by head and tail both.

Aggression

1. By consistently hanging on the enemy’s flank, we shall succeed in the long run in the killing the commander-in-chief.
2. The general is skillful in attack whose opponent does not what what to defend; and he is skillful in defense who opponent does not know what to attack.
3. If the enemy leaves a door open, you must rush in.

You thought the competition was horrible in 2004?  If poker was around, I bet Sun Tzu would crush souls in 544 B.C.

The Best Days & Times to Play Poker

Posted on Oct 05, 2009 by Gugel.

In my previous data analysis posts, we talked about how hard it is to move up in stakes and which sites have the best action.  Now, we’re going to look at what are the best times to play NL Hold’Em.

There’s obviously a lot of anecdotal evidence out there.  Most people assume that the action on weekend nights is the juiciest.  LuckySOB analyzed the sessions he played between June and August (note that he didn’t play on weekends) and found that he won:

• 42% of the sessions he played between 8AM and 11AM
• 49% between noon and 3PM
• 52% between 4PM and 7PMn
• 82% between 8PM and Midnight

That’s great and all, but that’s obviously very limited anecdotal evidence.  So how do we get good statistically significant data?  Dameon from PokerTableRatings.com was kind enough to send me some awesome data about average pot sizes.  Here’s a graph of what the average pot size looks like for $100NL on FullTilt based on the day of week and time of day.

FullTilt $100NL Best Times to Play

The times are all military Eastern Standard Time.  In other words, “Tuesday – 18″ means Tuesday at 6:00PM EST.

Based on the graph, we can tell that the peak times to play for

• Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday is around 9-11PM.
• Thursday night has a longer peak time — from around 8PM – 12AM.
• On Friday, the action starts to get hot at around 6PM and stays hot until 2AM or so.
• Saturday night has the overall highest average pot size.

Interested to know what the graph looks for PokerStars?  How about what the graph looks like for $200NL, $400NL, or $1000NL?  You can download the full PDF with all the graphs on the AnskyPoker.com Forums (yes this is a bribe to get you to sign up).  When you register and login, you’ll see a secret “Premium Content” forum start to show up on the Forum index page.  The download link will be in there.

Win $25 Worth of Free Coaching

Posted on Sep 28, 2009 by Gugel.

Want to win $25 (1/2 an hour) of free coaching from me?  All you have to do is post a hand or ask a question on the AnskyPoker.com Heads Up Forums.  I’ll select one lucky winner out of everyone that makes a post in the next 2 weeks.

Update: In 3 days, 5 people have already signed up and posted.  My goal is to have 25 people registered by the time the contest is over (October 11, 2009).  Remember, it only takes a few minutes to register and ask question.  Hell, you might even learn something

My Bad River Bluff at $200 NL

Posted on Sep 27, 2009 by Gugel.

I’m playing $200 NL against Cricket Scores, a somewhat decent regular. We stacked off preflop when my AKs ran into his pocket queens. At this point, we’ve only played like 20 hands or so.

BB ($395.50)
Hero (SB) ($205.50)

Preflop: Hero is SB with Js, 2c
Hero bets $6, BB calls $4

Flop: ($12) 5c, 7h, 10d (2 players)
BB bets $7, Hero calls $7
This is the first time he’s donked into me, so I have no idea what his donking-range is. Folding here is definitely standard, but there’s a lot of cards that can come on the turn that I can bluff.

Turn: ($26) 10s (2 players)
BB bets $18, Hero raises to $42.50, BB calls $24.50
This is a really awesome card for me and if I call the flop, this is a must-bluff situation.

River: ($111) 7d (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $55.50
Here, I think I made a mistake. There is absolutely no need to bluff here. I’m only getting weaker hands to fold (like 68 or 89). My jack high might be good!

He ended up shoving over my river bet and I obviously folded.

Before you fire out a bluff, always think about hands the villain might have that are stronger than yours and if the villain will fold those hands. If no stronger hand folds, then it’s a bad bluff! In this case, there just wasn’t many hands that the villain could conceivably have that are stronger than mine and would fold to my bet.

Introducing the AnskyPoker.com Heads Up Forums

Posted on Sep 24, 2009 by Gugel.

Check out the new AnskyPoker.com Heads Up Forums!

You’ll be able to personally ask me questions about hands you’ve played, heads up NL strategy, hand reading and mental toughness.  I’ll post hands from my HU sessions too.  It’s gonna be almost like getting free coaching from me…ALMOST…

If you have questions about HU SNGs, 6max or full ring games, take it somewhere else

Should You Play on PokerStars or FullTilt? – Average Pot Sizes

Posted on Sep 22, 2009 by Gugel.

PokerStars vs. FullTilt

I’m really excited about this post.  This data has never been released and it’s practical, objective advice that can increase your winrate.

Here’s how I got my hands on this juicy data:
Dameon of PokerTableRatings saw my last post on trying to objectively measure how hard it is to move up in stakes and asked me if I wanted any additional data.  I asked him to ship me the average pot size by day of week/time of day and he was kind enough to oblige.  (Dameon, you’re the man).  With Dameon’s data, I basically knew the juiciest times to play on every site and every stake.  I’m going to share it with you.

So, in this post, I’ll start off by addressing whether it’s better to play on PokerStars or FullTilt.

You guessed it, it depends
If you play $25NL, $50NL, $100NL, $400NL, $600NL or $2000NL, Stars is better.  If you play $200NL, $1000NL or $5000NL, FullTilt is better.  The chart below shows the average pot size for both sites.

Why is this the case?  I think FullTilt’s rakeback program attracts better players for lower stakes (those low-limit grinders) and pots are smaller as a result.  As for the higher levels ($200NL and up), I have no idea what’s happening.  There are definitely some significant discrepancies (especially at $2000NL).  Anyone have any theories?  Post a comment.

How Hard is it to Move Up in Stakes?

Posted on Sep 14, 2009 by Gugel.

So as a follow-up to my previous post about data analysis, I decided to find out how hard it is to move up in stakes.  Let’s say you’re playing $100NL and want to move up to $200NL.  Just how much tougher is the competition?

Up to now, it’s been all hearsay.  One guy says it’s easy.  Another guy says it’s hard.  There was just no way to objectively measure the difficulty in moving up in stakes.  But now, thanks to PokerTableRatings, and lots of data analysis by yours truly, we can have a better idea of what to expect when we want to move up.

So here’s what I did.  I assumed that the average number of hands played at a certain level is an accurate reflection of the competition.  The more hands played, the weaker the competition.  The less hands played, the stronger the competition.  The data below supports that correlation.

Now, as you can see, there’s a big drop in the number of hands played when you go from $50NL to $100NL and relatively small drop from $600NL to $1000NL.  So the theory is that:

• A big percentage decline in the number of hands played from the previous level means it’s hard to move up
• A small percentage decline in the number of hands played from the previous level means it’s easy to move up

So in other words, it’s relatively tougher to move up from $50NL to $100NL than it is to move up from $600NL to $1000NL.  Here’s a pretty graph to illustrate that point.  The lower the Difficulty Index, the easier it is to move up to that level from the previous level.

To make it even clearer, here’s an easy to read chart.

But I wasn’t done yet.  I wanted to squeeze every drop of insight I could out the data.  Maybe some levels have fewer hands played than what we’d expect.  If that’s the case, that would mean that heads up poker “market” has not properly adjusted to the market conditions and there was a window of opportunity.

Average number of heads up hands played per day on Full Tilt

The blue line is the actual average number of heads up hands played on Full Tilt per day.  The red line is the predicted number of hands played.  As you can see, it looks like the HU poker “market” has adjusted pretty damn well.  Damn the efficiency of those free markets!

• $100NL and $600NL are slightly undersaturated
• $1000NL is slightly oversaturated

There aren’t really any big windows of opportunity, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t move up.  All you have to do is win more than half your current winrate to make it worthwhile!  Just get ready for some sick swings and unless your moving up from $600NL to $1000NL, don’t expect it to be easy

Beating Sit-N-Gos in 2004: A Data-Analysis Lesson from ShoeMoney

Posted on Sep 09, 2009 by Gugel.

Jeremy Schoemaker, aka ShoeMoney, is a brilliant marketer and comes up with some really great out-of-the-box ideas.  He wrote a post yesterday about how he was part of the 2004 poker craze and had decided to find a way to “beat the system”.  Now ShoeMoney is a really smart dude, but poker isn’t something you master overnight.  Truth be told, I’d guess he was a fish.

But here’s the thing – he looked for exploitable trends in his opponents on a large scale.  By analyzing some data, he realized that you could make the money around 20% of the time in 10-man sit-n-gos if you just fold every single hand.  Here’s the kicker though.  The time of day made a huge difference.  If you folded every single hand 1-2 hours before a major online tournament, he found that you’d breakeven!  His theory was that people were just killing time before the big event and would play rather recklessly.  He made an enhanced script (yes, a bot) that would run 1 to 2 hours before a major tourney, fold until there were 6 people, and then incorporate some very basic strategy.  Was it against the rules?  Sure.  Was it profitable in 2004?  You bet.  Would it be profitable today?  Probably not.  That’s not the point of this post though

The point is that you can get an edge in more ways than one.  One way is building your skills to dominate your opponents.  A less conventional one is looking for large-scale statistical trends.  According to ShoeMoney, there are just a few steps in finding these statistical trends to exploit your opponents:

• Record Data
• Analyze data
• Make betting decisions based on stats
• Build tools to improve profitability

I’m currently working on compiling some interesting large-scale statistical data of my own (no, I’m not making a bot).  Stay tuned.

Pot Entitlement – It’s Not Over Till It’s Over

Posted on Sep 08, 2009 by Gugel.

Don't go to scoop up the pot before the hand is over

In NL hold’em, a very strong hand on the flop can become a marginal hand on the turn or river. But people have a very hard time letting go of a flopped monster. I call this phenomenon, “pot entitlement”. Simply put, they feel they are entitled to win the pot, even when the board evolves unfavorably. I’m definitely guilty of this myself. In the following hand, I really, really wanted to call the turn since I flopped 2 pair, but a fold is correct.

Hero (Button) ($243.10)
SB ($107.20)

Preflop: Hero is Button with 4♠, 5♠
Hero bets $3, SB raises to $11, Hero calls $8

Flop: ($22) 3♣, 5♣, 4♣ (2 players)
SB bets $17, Hero calls $17

Turn: ($56) 2♠ (2 players)
SB bets $35, Hero folds

“But, Gugel, you flopped top two!” you say. True, but it’s a super dangerous board. If I raise on the flop, he’s going to fold all his air and get it in with hands that have good equity vs. me. It’s much better to wait for a safe turn (not a club, not a 2) and get it in. Unfortunately, the turn is a pretty disastrous card and the villain bets pretty big. The fact that I’m gonna be facing a river shove a huge percentage of the time and that my hand is super vulnerable even if I am ahead, makes this a fold.

Here’s another example:
Villain is a straightforward player that doesn’t get out of line.

Hero (BB) ($100)
SB (Button) ($100)

Preflop: Hero is Button with 7♠, 6♠
SB raises to $3, Hero calls $2

Flop: ($6) 7♥, 7♦, 9♣ (2 players)
Hero checks, SB bets $5, Hero calls $5.

Turn: ($16) T♠ (2 players)
Hero checks, SB checks

River: ($16) J♠ (2 players)
Hero bets $9, SB raises to $36.

A lot of people are going to call here because they flopped trips. Don’t fall into that trap. You’re not entitled to the pot. Always remember that the money in the pot is not yours until you showdown or the villain folds.  Don’t count your chickens before they hatch.

What Ayn Rand Can Teach You About Making Your Opponent Tilt

Posted on Sep 01, 2009 by Gugel.

Guilt is a powerful way of controlling people

I’m almost done with Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand.  She’s a really good writer, though the story can get a bit frustrating at times.  Anyway, one of the key points in her philosophy is that guilt is a powerful way of controlling people.  Make them feel guilty and they’ll do almost anything you want.  It works for religions, charities, and yes, even poker.

Guilt it the secret to controlling your opponent and making them go on tilt.
All you have to do is make your opponent feel guilty about a play he’s made.  To do that, you have to find out how to push his buttons.

• Is he playing above his bankroll and losing a certain amount of money will make him feel guilty?
• Will he feel guilty when you flop the nuts and he calls all 3 streets with middle pair?
• Will he feel guilty if you minraise his continuation bet, he shoves with air, and you call him with top pair-weak kicker?

Find out what buttons you need to push to make your opponent feel guilty and tilt is guaranteed to follow.

What do you do to get your opponent to go on tilt?
Post a comment!