9 Things You Will NEVER See Winning Poker Players Do

You will never see a winning poker player doing any of these 9 things. If you see somebody doing these, they are probably a fish.

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[christopherchristmas]

I enjoy your videos. I have played poker for fun for 40+ years. I have started playing serious poker. Playing 1/2 with 5 straddle. The videos and books have help me so much. Thank you!

[MarccoPolo-kw]

You opened my eyes to a lot my game has improved

[pokersoftwarereviews]

Mostly agree with these points. However:

Regarding (7) limping, note that this is only a problem vs good players who will take advantage of your capped ranged. Against weaker players, limping is fine. In fact, I'd argue that limping most of your pocket pairs and suited aces is the right play against people who don't know how to punish you for it.

Regarding (4), I think squeezing is a great play with your stronger hands, however I find that it doesn't work so good with some of the more speculative holdings. For example, although squeezing with your suited aces is probably OK, as you're blocking a lot of the hands your opponents can reasonably call with, the problem with this move is it that it causes weaker suited hands to fold, and that's a problem because if you can set up a flush-over-flush cooler, you'll probably get your opponent's entire stack. And unfortunately, at the softer games your A4s will often get called by A8o and other such rubbish, which puts you in a tough spot. In a similar way, I find that my squeezes with suited connectors get called enough that it's just not worth it. Maybe squeeze with like 50% of your suited connectors, just so you can flip them over and prove that you're not just squeezing exclusively with KQo+, but I don't think you should do this with every suited connector you're dealt in late position. Instead, just limp in with everyone else and try to make a straight, and be careful because if you hit an 8-high flush, because anyone who seems eager to play a big pot with your probably has you beat.

Regarding (2), sometimes this can't be helped. I often squeeze the limpers to about $20 on the $1/$3 tables I play, and still get a large number of callers. It's not ideal, but if they're calling with KTo, your AKo is going to be in good shape and you'll probably win the pot about 50% of the time, which is all you really need when the pot is so big because of all the people who called with speculative holdings.

Finally, I'll add one more point to BlackRain's comments: you'll never see a good player treat KJo like it's KQo. If you're making the mistake of playing a lot of "king jackoffs" in the hope of hitting the flop, start folding these more readily, and I can pretty much guarantee that your profitability will head north.

[Burgundy-Mel]

Idk why it took me so long to subscribe. Was always interested in poker but never had a chance to play, recently got into online Texas hold em for fun, and man have you improved my game! Nowhere near professional but it's fun seeing the reactions when I win those pots! You definitely give me the tips and tricks in what to look for, thanks man!

[joonpark]

For the AA hand 4 way. Holdem odds calculator only calculates ai ev. AA in 4 way aipf with 46% equity would be printing more long run as opposed to AA Hu with 80% equity.

[AjaxLefeuf]

If I'm in late position and it folds around, I'll limp with a premium hand against an aggressive player who's in the blinds. I let him raise me then eat his lunch in position. Only great situation for it really.

[junito]

Bad player: Now I know why I’ve been losing 🤦🏻‍♂️ those were my Top 9 moves !! 😂

[Silverback]

I always go in with AA, KK, QQ, anything from A to 9 lol. I hate flops slow poker.

[joonpark]

I think x/c (check call) is best. Not a fan of leading this particular Tx combo unless 8 or 9 is a H.. would much rather lead Tx combo such a JT QT even T7s as we block more of our opponents continues

[markusbecker]

Lately I raised my AA UTG+1 in a fullring cashgame to 5bb to isolate, but 5 players called. Flop came K-8-10 rainbow and I check-called half pot vs button and UTG and check-folded the (blank) turn bet from the button, while UTG called again. On the river button shoved, UTG called... It was set of 8s (button) vs K-10...

[BryanHill-ic]

Where can I play online cash games ?? What are the best sites??

[BroadwayGaming]

I like limping in 2-20 - I'm not confident in my hand but when you hit it, it makes up for the other times I don't limp. I'm selective on limping, I don't do it with crap hands usually middle/mediocre ones. I don't limp with A-Q offsuite, I raise with that. Maybe I'm just trash and playing bad, my biggest struggle is when people raise on 2-20 preflop and you call if you whiff the board you can't bluff others to fold most of the time so you end up folding on a bet. Most don't bluff either so you know they generally paired something.

[joonpark]

The 88 hero call vs the very lag player (loose aggressive). I think it’s quite situational however I would lean towards folding this particular combo such as 88, 99 (ESPECIALLY rainbow boards) and rather call with hands such as QQ, JJ, 75s 74s as hero calls and consider bluff raising hands such as 46s 44, 55, 53, A3 etc. although in these scenarios there appears to be little to no difference between calling with hands such as JJ and 88 at face value assuming we are either beat by his Kx+ and beating all his bluffs, the difference is extreme. If we take into consideration of our opponents lag bluff range it would more often than not be some variation of combo draws or even draws that contain only emergency outs. As I noted in caps “especially in rainbow” etc.. since there’s no possible FD this would mean their bluffs with equity would be SD and an 8x9x cards would be in their range. So if we block those then they will naturally have more value bets as opposed to bluffs. And calling QQ, JJ etc would be blocking a lot of their value bet range as KQ KJ Etc would be a part of their value range.

[jeff]

#2 could be a topic for its own video. How do you make bigger raises in order to get fewer callers without giving away your hand? If you usually raise 3x but bump it to 10x every time you have AA, even the fish are going to catch on.

[RLeader-le]

Great Video's However I have a question. #7 Limping. Your example says you should be raised to $6? In my home game, the standard open is usually $12 in our 1/2 game and usually gets 2 plus callers. What do you recommend there? I mean a #6 raise would be an 8 handed limp fest. Also Im in Texas LOL

[joonpark]

We should actually increase our 3b frequency with hands such as 98h vs calling stations who would call us with everything.. reasons being ..

1) our hand flops continuable equity very frequently

2) we want to isolate esp if we are ip and if we are deep vs calling stations that call with everything. Often calling stations that call everything pre woukd mean they are playing hands that don’t flop equity as well as ours and would often take the raise/call pre + check/fold flop line.

3)assuming we are deep and in pos if our opponent decides to 4b back our hand can 3b call and play post ip comfortably. We would be losing long run if we fold to their 4b and also losing if we 3b call, but we would be losing less long run. For all the times they do not 4b back if they are content to raise call with all sorts of junk then we would be content as well to print long run by taking this line.

Just because their random hand vs our 98hh would be often a very small favourite, it’s only the case for aipf ev so we should not misunderstand the effect and value or lack their of as the calling station raise call range will majorly contain reverse implied odds

[arthurflegenheimer]

Some thoughts on limping: why not limp on the SB sometimes? Also, in MP, NEVER limp first in, but you can limp after limpers for info, just be aware this is not a bet, you're simply paying a BB to see what everybody does before you decide.
For the exploit, you can as well raise any suited ace on the button all of the time I think, almost anything really, limper or no limper, and when there are limpers around, 4x is not a bad idea anyway either. In tournaments, you can sometimes like set a standard for the table that will stick when some players follow along and hence you can influence general SPR and variances.
However, I 100% agree, punish them and raise them more often (I might have said something like J7 instead of A4s, and that might be personal preference, but as a reminder here: A4o is complete trash), and see them crumble because they don't know why they are being bullied, they can feel they're doing something wrong but nobody tells them what, so they become more insecure and make even more mistakes. (Or... you do tell them at some point, and explain the limp, but they won't shut up and listen for a minute but debate a different "opinion"..)

[velmrok]

13:00 i dont get it xD if you are all-in with AA against 3 people, you need to have above 25% to make profit. The example shows 46% which is huge, even though your losing in most cases, you will win in 46% of situations making profit of 4 stacks

[chouaxiong-cfhy]

I play with alot off fish should i 20x the blind to get most of them to fold.. $1/$2 blinds..they well call just about anything under $10

[williamhope]

In a $1 /$2 house game what if you are not the first one to bet.Most people limp in.I usually bet 3× the big blind =$6.Thank you just said add $1 for each limper.What if before the flop in the house game 1/2 the guy is betting or raising $100 every hand.Was I right to cash out?I was getting frustrated because if I call I do not have deep pockets.Thank you.