But despite preferring other card-games, I still played a little poker every now and then. When I was about 10 years or so, the poker-games became more interesting as we began to play for several different kind of stakes.

First up was water-poker. The punishment for losing was that you had to drink water, and the reward for winning was that you didn´t have to drink water, but could instead enjoy the suffering of those who did. We were sadistic little rats. The ante was half a glass, and then we could bet/raise/re-raise on top of that. If you fold or lose a hand, you had to drink the amount of glasses you had ”put in the pot”.

I wisely folded a lot because half a glass per hand was a cheap exit in these games. But some took risks by staying in hands where the amount of glasses per player had reach numbers they knew they would have an awful time drinking if they lost. I can tell you that things got really tense around the table when glasses per player reached 10+. It is a small miracle none of us got seriously ill in these games.

Another variant was knuckle-poker. Doesn´t sound very pleasant, does it? Instead of betting glasses of water to drink, one bets a numbers of hits over the knuckles with the short end of the deck. An extra bonus to the winner of the hand was that he had the honour of executing this mideval punishment. First the knuckles would get red, then they would start to bleed. The level of your skills had little to do with poker in these games, and more to do with how fast and accurately you could swing the deck over somebody´s knuckles. True pros could make someone bleed with a single swing. I wisely stayed out of these games, but enjoyed many as a spectator.

I don´t know if water-poker and knuckle-poker are international games, but another variant we played (this time with just a male friend) definately is. It was strip-poker. This wasn´t some kind sexual experiment, if that is what you are thinking. We played on his computer. The women you could choose from to play against (a massive number of two) where highly pixelated and probably fictional. The blonde was much hotter than the brunette, so we always played against her (until we one glorious day beat her).

This friend of mine came from a very religious family, which wouldn´t have reacted with undivided joy if they had known what we did down there in the basement. Settle down, readers, we played poker, not with unmentionable body-parts. There was always a risk we would get caught, and this added a lot to the excitement. Frequently, his mother would come down to us, and whenever that happened, he turned off the computer. The slightest sound coming from the stairs or hallway, would cause him to turn the computer off at the speed of light. In retrospect, I figure it must have been very suspicious that we often sat in front of a turned off computer when she paid us a visit.

I remember when we beat the blonde. She was naked except for a strategic shade around her most private part. The computer said something like ”press Space when you are done looking”. Needless to say, we didn´t press Space until after a good 15 minutes.

With the blinds and chip stack I just gave let’s pretend you received AK in middle position on the table with no raisers in front of you.  In this situation I would open almost every time and avoid being the first to limp in the pot.  I say this because with the blinds at this size, you are missing a grand opportunity to take down the blinds before the flop and you can avoid any action.  Now let’s say you are in the same position but there is a raiser in front of you, what to do you may ask?  A lot of people in this situation would probably raise and there is no arguing against this play because more often than not it is the most effective way to play it.  But we are playing the game of poker so there really isn’t a right way to play this hand.

By that I mean a player could call in this spot in hoping of setting a trap.  For instance if the initial raiser raises every hand and barrels the flop every time then you could call behind in hopes of hitting a big flop so you can make your move on him after he makes his post-flop bet.  Another reason for calling in a situation like is because you may provoke some players behind you to try and steal the pot with a raise and then you can pick them off with your AK hand (hopefully).  So if you have a player being active and constantly trying to re-steal the spot then try this move sometime and see how it works out for you.

Before trying this play, make sure you have the chips in front of you to do so.  In both those situations above we had 100,000 and we could call the standard raise of 12,000 and we would still have 88k in chips in front of us.  But if the blinds remain the same and our stack is at 50,000 and we face the same raise there really is no other option but to go all in this situation.  Calling would be a bad idea because you are leaving yourself with less than 10 big blinds and you would cripple your stack if you completely miss the flop.

I hope these tips will pay off and odds are if you have been at the tables before this is going to seem like old news but for the new players out there; beware of Ace Kingy.  GL GL

I also like that you see some of the cards those who folded had. This changes your odds of hitting whatever you are trying to hit, which I find fun. In Hold´em it is always the same old story. You have a flush-draw on the flop: 9 outs out of 47. You have a gutshot and an overcard on the turn: 7 outs out of 46. Never more, never less. Day in and day out. It gets boring.

7-card Stud has its own problems, though. No community cards. I like community cards. I guess it is because I am so used to them. And I hate that once people fold, you no longer see what cards they had, so you have to use a lot of energy trying to remember. It is like that memory-game that sucks balls. I think it is called Kim´s Game or something, where you see a lot of objects, get a short time to memorize them, then they are removed and you must list the items. Lord have mercy.

I want to take the best parts of 7-card stud and put it in Texas Hold´em. When somebody folds preflop, I want one of his cards to be revealed, say the 1st card he was dealt. If that card happens to be a queen, a non-pocket pair hand with a queen would suddenly sink drastically in value. I find this fun. It shakes things up a bit. Every time somebody folds preflop, another card is revealed. Even folds become entertaining.

Players who don´t fold preflop will still keep their cards hidden. But on the flop, all hell breaks loose. The player to the left of the button (typically the small blind) must show a card. If this player folded preflop, he shows his other card. If this player didn´t fold preflop, he shows the 1st card he was dealt and performs an action. Then the next player shows a card (and performs an action if he is still in the pot) and so on.

If a player folds postflop, he must immediately show both cards. All these showing of cards will change pot odds constantly, and the cards will stay up so people can focus on outsmarting their opponents instead of desperately trying to remember every shown card. Perhaps it is just me, but I would find that a lot more entertaining.

Another thing I want to add is a mandatory showing of cards when the hand is over. If a hand is won by someone folding to a bet/raise/re-raise, both the folder and the winner must show their hands. It is so frustrating to never find out if you would have won if you had called, so I think this is a nice addition. Besides, forcing successful bluffers to show their bluff afterwards to the unfortunate bluffee is certain to cause smiles or laughter around the table, in addition to one very red face.

When playing in the early stages of poker tournaments I always prefer the conservative side so I can preserve my chips for the later stages where I can make more profitable moves.  Nonetheless when playing in the early stages there are many ways to play to ask without getting yourself into trouble.  First off, when facing a raise from an earlier position it’s not a bad move to just call in these situations.  Lets say the blinds are 15/30 and the initial raiser makes it 90 and you have 3000 chips in front of you; calling in this situation wouldn’t be a terrible idea.  Upon calling you are seeing a cheap flop with not risking a lot of chips and if you completely miss the board you can get easily get away from the hand.  I don’t mind this play at all as a matter of fact and I have been doing it more and more in recent tournaments  Now if you prefer not to call and you would rather raise in this situation then all the power to you.

Some people prefer the raise because maybe with a raise they can take the hand down pre-flop without any worries, they may want to create a certain image at the table or perhaps they don’t know any better or they may even believe once they receive AK they must raise no matter the situation.  When playing online I see a lot of new players raise with the AK and then go broke when they completely miss the flop because they are unable to lay their hand down.  This is what I mean by overplaying the hand and it happens to often.  If you are gong to raise before the flop with AK, this doesn’t mean you have go broke it if you miss the flop.  Too often I see players have AK and when the flop comes Q 10 3 they try to make heroic type plays just to try and win the hand often times its because they have Ak and they don’t know how else to play it.  I really encourage players to evaluate the situation in front of them before they go nuts with Ak and lose their stack when they really don’t need to.

In my next article I am going to discuss the later stages of tournaments of how to play AK and how to mix up your play with this hand so your opponents don’t catch on to your style of play.  Good luck at the tables my friends.