In business, leverage usually refers to what you have to push against someone who is trying to get the better of you in order to assert your position. If someone is trying to push a lowball job offer on you, having another job offer gives you leverage to push back. In poker, leverage refers to a bet that has more force because of the advantage created by the promise of future bets.

Using Leverage in Poker

Leverage in poker is most effective in a no limit game when you have a deep stack. When you make a bet at the pot, an opponent may be reluctant to call not because of the initial bet, but because he may be anticipating bets on future streets. Depending on the situation, you may win many pots on the flop or turn with minimal risk, simply because an opponent is not prepared to call bigger bets down the line.

However, if you wish to gain leverage, you must be sure that your opponent fears losing his chips. A bet made in later stages of a multi-table tournament with large prizes is not the same as a bet in a free poker tournament.

How to Gain Leverage in Poker

The way you gain leverage when you play poker online is by showing your opponents that you are an aggressive player who is willing to make big bets and are controlling most pots you’re involved in. If you are the type of player who makes one bet, then gives up and checks it down to the river, you will not get any leverage on your bets.

Similarly, if you are a short stack, you have no leverage because opponents know exactly how big a threat you are. In the same vein, if you are facing a short stack you have little leverage because this player is much more likely to be willing to commit himself to the pot if he likes his hand.

Notes on Leverage

Leverage is only one tool in a poker arsenal and should be used wisely. Try to determine which situations will create fear in your opponents and use your loose, dangerous image to push marginal hands. When you have strong hands, try to play in such a way that keeps your opponents relaxed and unsuspecting until the moment you bring the hammer down.

From Heads-Up-Poker.org
Heads-Up Poker games, where you face just one opponent, are an exiting and demanding variation of the usual ring-game format. This article contains 10 tips that will get you winning at heads-up poker.

Heads-Up Poker Tip #1 – Position

Acting last after the flop is a huge advantage in poker. You get to see your opponent’s action before you make a decision on what to do. This allows you to win more with your good hands and lose the least when you are behind. In heads-up poker you will have position (the small blind / dealer button) half of the time – make sure you use this to your full advantage.

Heads-Up Poker Tip #2 – Aggression

Pre-flop your opponent will not have a strong hand most of the time. Combine this with the fact that unpaired hands will only hit the flop 1/3rd of the time and it is easy to see how aggression will win many pots when playing heads-up. After all, if you do not raise then you have not given your opponent an opportunity to fold!

Heads-Up Poker Tip #3 – Pot Control

Over time everyone gets their fair share of good and bad hands. Winners in poker make sure that they win bigger than average pots and lose smaller than average pots. Decide whether you have a ‘big-pot’ hand during play and plan your bets to win as many of your opponents chips as possible. Conversely manage the pot with a vulnerable hand so as to lose the least if you happen to be behind.

Heads-Up Poker Tip #4 – Reading Your Opponent

Work out as early in the heads-up game as possible what hands your opponent raises, checks and calls your bets with. Is this opponent likely to raise strongly with a flush draw? Will this opponent check a monster hand looking to check-raise or lead straight out? Will this player raise a marginal hand on the river if you have shown weakness, or instead call and see a showdown?

Heads-Up Poker Tip #5 – Adapting To Your Opponent

In order to take advantage of your reads on an opponent you must be ready to adapt your play. If they are too tight then… continue reading at Heads-Up-Poker.org

By Lou Krieger
As poker’s popularity continues to grow in the United States and overseas, experienced home game players as well as those who are new to the game itself, continue to sidle up to casino poker tables asking to be dealt in. Although new and exciting, playing poker in a casino can be confusing at first, and new players are usually full of questions. This is particularly true, and quite understandable, when that newcomer is playing hold’em for the first time, since even experienced home game players may either be more familiar with stud or have played such a wide variety of home poker games that they may never have studied, or even thought about hold’em to any measurable degree.Some newcomers think they know it all. Others ask a lot of questions, particularly when they are attempting to learn hold’em the right way. Rather than simply sitting down and paying for lessons at the table, many new players - in an attempt to fast-track their own learning process - are reading books and using computer software to learn essential poker principles before attempting to put them in action in live games.

Some new players have read so extensively about poker that their questions are quite sophisticated. While these players are the exception rather than the rule, you can usually tell how schooled they are because their inquiries are aimed at sorting out information hierarchically, so they’ll know what’s important and how to apply that knowledge in the heat of battle. Players who haven’t read much about the game, or even thought about it at all, generally….  read rest of article at PokerPages

By Wil Wheaton
During this year’s WSOP, I had the extreme pleasure and good fortune to sit in on a few strategy lectures that Barry Tanenbaum gave in the Poker Stars hospitality suite. I was so impressed, and learned so much from the brief sessions, I hired Barry for a two-hour private consultation to identify and plug a few holes I thought I had in my no-limit tournament game. They helped tremendously — even though I didn’t make it far in the Main Event (my own fault for getting a case of the stupids) I subsequently used Barry’s advice at a Legends of Poker preliminary event and finished 40th out of 395, and in my first WWdN after returning home from the WSOP, where I final-tabled.

In other words, Barry Tanenbaum is The Man, and when he speaks, people who want to improve their game should listen.

Every week, Barry posts a Thought of the Week at his blog, which provides insight into a specific poker strategy or concept, and every week I read it and get one step closer to growing a level in poker.

This week, Barry addresses open-limping in hold’em, and why you should never do it:

read rest of article at Card Squad

If you know something about poker, you know that you should be folding a lot of your starting hands, right? And what are the best hands, the one you should be playing with? There are a lot of lists available, and some desktop backgrounds to the online poker player.

In the book “Hold’em Poker for Advanced Players” (see below) , David Sklansky and Mason Malmuth divide the starting hands in groups, in a simple but effective way, and we will show our version below.

Before that, let’s remember some poker glossary:

So, JTs = a Jack and a 10 of the same suit. AQo means an Ace and a Queen, with different suits. Axs = an Ace and a small card, like 5 for example, both of the same suit. Pairs are always off-suit, since we only use one deck in Texas Hold’em.

Connectors = consecutive cards, like 8 and 7, which makes it easier to do a straight. Suited connectors are even better, since they also increase the chances of a flush.

Now let’s see the groups. You already know, or will learn right now, that position is tremendously important in Texas Hold’em. The key to success in this game is….  read rest of article at The Online Poker Life