Poker tips from a poker star

Those ancient Chinese were clever, weren’t they? Not only did they invent gunpowder, paper making, tea, the compass, mechanical clocks and alcohol, but they can also lay claim to producing the world’s first playing cards, back in the Ninth Century. Little did those folk in the Tang Dynasty know that one of the 21st Century's biggest moneymakers would be spawned on the back of their ingenuity.

If you include black market bets, the global gambling industry is estimated to be worth $800bn. Increasingly, a large slice of that pie is taken up by online gambling, with poker to the fore. It's an area of rapid growth: according to Christiansen Capital Advisors, worldwide revenue from online poker grew from $82.7 million in 2001 to $2.4 billion in 2005.

One person who rode the wave of that initial online boom was Alexander Millar, or Kanu7 (his poker name derives from his footballing style, which he says is reminiscent of former Arsenal forward Nwankwo Kanu – “gangly, awkward but sometimes doing good stuff”). Millar, 29, took up online poker during his holidays while studying engineering at Warwick University and soon became the third-best heads-up online poker player in the world, all from sitting in front of his laptop. Earlier this month he was named Best Online Cash Player in the 2014 British Poker Awards. Sounds like a lucrative day job - though Millar tells me his most extravagant purchase is a £250 Roomba Robot (those motorised gadgets that clean your floor).



Here, Millar, who became a PokerStars sponsored pro last October, shares his five tips that will give you an edge when playing poker - be it online or at the table.

1. Be sensible about what stakes you play

“This is probably the most important tip. You need to carefully think about how much you want to gamble at one time at the table. If you are prepared to lose $100 and you deposit that amount on a poker site, don’t sit there with the whole amount in play, because the chances are you will lose it pretty quickly. That’s the way that people get into problems with gambling. You think ‘I enjoyed that, I want to play some more’ and you don’t want to drop down to lower stakes, so you deposit another $100, which is more than you can afford.

If you are happy losing $100, play $2 or $5 games. That way, if things go well after a period of time you can move your way up, which is exactly what I did to begin with. The bottom line is don’t blow it all in one go.”

2. Don’t try to put your opponent on a specific hand

“It’s tempting to do this – think that the person you are playing has the ace to make the pair, or whatever – but it can seriously sidetrack and distract you, leading you down a path of bad decision making that ends with losing money.

You need to think about he range of hands he or she could have and try to play against that whole set of possibilities. Try to think about things in the broad sense.”

3. Be consistent with your bets

“Your bet sizing is a key aspect to your game, so you need to give it a lot of thought. For instance, if you find yourself in a situation where you have a lot of strong hands and a lot of potential bluffs, while your opponent is getting middle range, marginal hands, resist the temptation to make ginormous bets. Certainly don't go bigger than the size of the pot (which is called an ‘over bet’).

Be consistent. If you make similar size bets on strong hands and bluffs, you put your rival in a really difficult situation. He's got a marginal hand and he can't get a read on what you're holding. Therefore, he's much more likely to make mistakes.

Conversely, if you have a lot of marginal hands yourself which you think you can get a little bit of value out of, chose a small bet sizing that covers your whole range.”

4. Every bet counts – don't lose your head

“If you find yourself in a disadvantaged situation where you have a rash of weak or medium-strength hands and your opponent has stronger cards and decent bluffs, try to think backwards through the rounds to see if you have done anything that has led to you being in this difficult predicament. Sometimes that situation will just happen, in which case it is fine, but if it happens quite a lot you should consider checking stronger hands earlier in the round of betting, or not raising when you face a big bet.

By saving a few chips here and there you can reach more situations later on where you have strong hands to defend against your opponent.”

5. Learn from losing – channel your frustrations

"It can be bitterly frustrating to lose at poker, especially if you think it was down to bad luck rather than your mistakes. What you really need to do is channel that frustration into a desire to improve your game. The better you are the less the bad luck will affect you.

It's all about making the most of your good runs and limiting the bad ones. Research how to improve. There is a helpful site called pokerschoolonline.com, which is run by PokerStars and is free. It shows you videos where pros play while explaining their thought processes. There is a whole range of teaching levels, from very basic to much more advanced.

Good luck, and see you at a table soon!"

Hey Menne, I am getting a fan of you day by day. These tips are so much helpful for me in a table when i will be playing. I am using a software also to get simplified my profile with mostly important and relevant stats to make proper decisions in multi-tabling game.

Thanks for sharing such a nice poker playing tips. I love poker and recently i am starting to play poker game online so i need some tips and tricks to play poker and become a good player.