winning poker hands Archives

In this latest “In Conversation” video for the Paul Phua Poker School, Wai Kin Yong and Rui Cao share three secrets for poker success, and remember an amazing hero call. Paul Phua picks the video highlights

If the Triton Super High Roller Series has a break-out star, it’s surely Wai Kin Yong. My young friend has had a superb run: in three Triton SHR tournaments between September 2016 and February 2017, he won twice and came sixth once, for a total of more than US$3m.
Watch this new video for the Paul Phua Poker School, in which Wai Kin Yong explores the secrets of his success with me and Rui Cao, one of the most respected of all French players.

Learn from other poker players

In Wai Kin Yong and Rui Cao’s previous Paul Phua Poker School video, they talked about their aggressive playing style. But actually, as you will find in this new video, Wai Kin Yong achieved poker tournament success only when he tempered that style with a little more caution. In poker tournaments your chips are more precious than in cash: you cannot rebuy. It makes sense to take a slightly less aggressive strategy, and to narrow your hand range.
Here, Wai Kin Yong gives credit to his excellent mentor, the pro Mikael Thuritz. “He’s a great teacher,” says Wai Kin Yong. “I mean, he improved my game, like, 500% maybe!”
Rui Cao, too, stresses the importance of learning from others, no matter how high a level you reach at poker. “I used to watch a lot of videos,” says Rui Cao, “talk with a lot of friends, so it’s not a single person, but just a group of people who made me a better player. I like to talk with good players all the time, so little by little I become better, l think.”

Play the poker player, not the cards

Wai Kin Yong and Rui Cao have played poker together many times, but when asked for their most memorable hand, they both immediately think of the same one.
On a board that ended up something like 7-4-J-6-A, Wai Kin Yong held just pocket nines. All the same, when Rui Cao check-raised the flop, bet the turn, then jammed the river, Wai Kin Yong still managed to call him down! It shows how important it is to know your opponent’s playing style: Wai Kin Yong evidently decided Rui Cao was capable of a triple-barrel bluff.
Wai Kin Yong explains: “I was like, ‘Hmm, it’s Rui Cao. I call with nines. Good!’ And he got so mad about it. I called with nines, ha ha!”
That fearlessness, that ability to trust your read no matter how intimidating the bet, is one of the many things that separates the true poker pro from the amateur.

Play for love of the game, not just money

Finally, we discuss what it takes to be good at poker. Rui Cao believes you need to play from the heart as much as the head; for love, not money.
“If you play the game to win money,” says Rui Cao, “you can be a top player, but you won’t be world class. Maybe you are going to be able to win a little bit, but you’re not going to love it. I think loving the game is the most important thing in poker.”
Wai Kin Yong returns to the opening theme of the video when he says: “I think the most important thing for beginners is their willingness to learn, and admit that you’re not good, you know. Whereas l have known people who play poker every day, and they are losing every day, but they just think it’s bad luck. And l don’t think poker has that much bad luck.
“You have to question yourself, and improve.”

**In his second video for the Paul Phua Poker School, Dan “Jungleman” Cates reveals why aggression pays. Paul Phua picks the interview highlights.**

If you have been playing poker for as long as I have, you will have noticed that playing styles have become more aggressive over the years. The aggressor is the one able to take initiative, and aggressive raising also gives you “fold equity”, forcing a fold from a stronger hand. These days there are many expert players who 3-bet pre-flop with hands that others might not even call with.
It makes them unpredictable and hard to play against. They might have Ace-King, Ace-Queen or a big pair… but they might also have just suited connectors!

Why Dan Cates 3-bets with 5-3 suited

In his previous video interview for the Paul Phua Poker School, Dan “Jungleman” Cates talked about the aggression that has made him one of the world’s best heads-up players – “I just try to win all the pots I can!” In this second “In Conversation With Paul Phua” video for the Paul Phua Poker School, Dan “Jungleman” Cates talks in greater detail about the hands he likes to 3-bet with.
“If we’re playing in our game,” says Jungleman, “the deep game [high-stakes cash], l’d 3-bet the biggest hands, obviously, but also, like, the bluffs that play the best post-flop, the ‘best bluffs’ so to speak. Like 6-5 suited, 5-3 suited, obviously.”
It may not be obvious to less experienced players that one could raise with 5-3 suited! But that’s what makes Jungleman one of the most successful poker pros around. Dan Cates made more than $10 million profit on the Full Tilt poker site before transitioning to live games, and has since racked up more than $5 million in tournament cashes.

Why 3-bets depend on player and position

As with everything in poker strategy, how you 3-bet will depend on who you are playing against. Jungleman explains: “If someone plays either like tight or aggressive or whatever, l would rather not 3-bet something like AJ offsuit. But if they play passive, and like, just call down or don’t have too many moves, l’d rather 3-bet AJ offsuit a lot.”
And of course it also depends on your position. Jungleman continues: “Or maybe some players I might want to 3-bet more than others, like, if l want to play more in position with them or whatever.”

Why size matters in bluffing

One strategy I have noticed some aggressive poker pros adopt is to deliberately bet more with their bluffs to create a bigger pot. By the time the river comes, the pot is so large that many amateur players will not dare to call with anything much less than the nuts.
In this new Paul Phua Poker School video interview, I ask Jungleman about that. “l think it can make sense to do that,” he agrees. “l mean, l think at least in theory things are quite a bit more complicated, for various reasons.
“l mean, you can manipulate pot stack size if you just know, like, how much they’re going to call on the turn and then fold on the river, if someone just always calls and folds on the river or something. But l think that’s kind of a complicated subject.”
What he means is, this is not something you should try unless you genuinely are an expert player!

How often should you bluff?

Jungleman also talks about when and how to bluff: “The one thing l think about more is how many bluffs do l want to turn up with. In pretty much every situation, basically, you can kind of, like, weight the value of various different bluffs in a lot of the spots and, like, how strong ranges players have. l think about stuff like that…”
And then Jungleman shows that, however aggressive the pro players can be, for the most part they still follow the most simple and fundamental poker advice of all: “But mostly l try to play big pots with big hands

Who is Daniel “Jungleman” Cates? Poker player profile

Dan Cates, 27, from the United States, is one of the world’s leading heads-up poker players.
He plays online under the names “Jungleman12” and “w00ki3z”.
He has made more than $10 million profit on the Full Tilt poker site.
He has nearly $5 million in live tournament cashes.
He often plays cash poker for high stakes in “the Big Game” in Macau and Manila.
He is known for his aggressive style of play.

Over nearly 50 years, the Main Event at the World Series of Poker has witnessed extraordinary dramas and created huge stars. The Paul Phua Poker School picks the top 10 events you really need to know

How did the poker tournament expression “a chip and a chair” come about? Why is 10-2 known as “the Doyle Brunson”? Where did the poker movie Rounders get its final hand? How did Phil Hellmuth become famous at 24? In what way did the WSOP’s 2003 live tournament change the face of internet poker? All is revealed below. If only history lessons at school had been this fun…

1970-1: The World Series of Poker is born

The very first World Series of Poker was not even a tournament: the pros were simply asked to elect the man they thought was the best player. Legend has it that at first they all voted for themselves, so a winner was only announced after they were told to name the second best player! That man was Johnny Moss, and the very next year, when a tournament structure was introduced to the WSOP, Moss proved the vote right by winning fair and square. He went on to be known as “The Grand Old Man of Poker”. Read more

1976-1977: How the “Doyle Brunson hand” got its name

There are lucky hands, and then there is the “Doyle Brunson hand” – a hand so ridiculously lucky that it forever more bears the name of the man who played it. Aged 83, Doyle “Texas Dolly” Brunson has now won 10 WSOP bracelets, but none more spectacularly than his two back-to-back Main Event wins. Holding just 10-2, he made a house to knock out his heads-up opponent Jesse Alto in 1976. Incredibly, the very next year he again made a house with 10-2 to knock out Gary “Bones” Berland. Read more

1982: Jack Straus and the original “chip and a chair”

You may have heard the poker expression, “as long as you’ve got a chip and a chair…” It means that no matter how few chips you are left with in a poker tournament, you always have a chance. But you may not know that this saying was born at the World Series of Poker in 1982. The story of how Jack “Treetop” Straus recovered from a single chip to win the Main Event and $520,000 is not just the greatest underdog story in poker, but possibly in any sport. Read more

1988: Johnny Chan retains his WSOP title with the “Rounders” hand

Johnny Chan, nicknamed “The Orient Express” for the speed with which he demolished his opponents, was one of the finest players of the 1980s. Not content with winning the World Series of Poker Main Event in 1987, he repeated the feat with a back-to-back championship title in 1988. And he did it with a trap so well laid that this final hand against Erik Seidel was immortalised in the poker movie Rounders… Read more

1989: Phil Hellmuth becomes the youngest ever WSOP champion

Johnny Chan nearly pulled off the historic feat of a WSOP Main Event hat-trick. For a third year in a row, he found himself heads-up after defeating all comers. Even better, he was up against some inexperienced young kid of 24. Unluckily for him, that young man just happened to be Phil Hellmuth, and he was so focused on winning that he’d left a message on his answerphone saying, “You’re talking to the 1989 world champion of poker”. This was the WSOP that propelled “the Poker Brat” to fame. Read more

1995: Barbara Enright is the first woman to reach the WSOP final table

When asked to name a female poker pro, you might immediately think of Annie Duke, Vanessa Selbst, or Liv Boeree. But to players of an older generation, Barbara Enright’s name would roll first off the tongue. As the first (and still only) woman to reach the final table of the WSOP, she paved the way for future female players in what is still a very male-dominated environment. And she would have done better than fifth place, too, if it wasn’t for a painful bad beat… Read more

1997: Stu Ungar wins a historic third WSOP Main Event

Ask any poker player who was the greatest of all time, and there’s a good chance they’ll say Stu Ungar. With a photographic memory that got him banned from blackjack tables, and poker reads so acute he once won a $50,000 WSOP heads-up event by calling with 10-high, Stu “The Kid” Ungar was one of the greatest natural talents ever. But after winning the world championship in 1980 and 1981, he fell prey to drug addiction. His extraordinary story was to have a triumphant conclusion at the 1997 World Series of Poker… Read more

2003: Chris Moneymaker launches the internet poker boom

Was there ever a poker player more aptly named than Chris Moneymaker? In 2003, the accountant and amateur poker player turned a $39 entry to an online satellite tournament into $2.5 million when he won the WSOP Main Event. His victory was the personification of the American Dream that anyone can make it big, and inspired a whole generation of online poker players. Over the next three years, entries to the WSOP Main Event increased tenfold. Read more

2007: Annette Obrestadt becomes the youngest WSOP bracelet winner

Annette Obrestadt was a few days short of her 19^th birthday when she won the World Series of Poker Europe, in the WSOP’s first official bracelet tournament outside America. She was young; she was a woman; she was part of a new breed of aggressive online players who would change the face of poker strategy. Annette Obrestadt once won an online poker tournament playing “blind”, with her cards covered up – but she would need all her resources to triumph over the WSOPE Main Event… Read more

2012: Antonio Esfandiari wins $18m in the Big One for One Drop

The Main Event of the World Series of Poker has traditionally awarded the biggest first prize of all poker tournaments. But a side-event of the WSOP, first held in 2012, dwarfed even these sums. This was the Big One for One Drop, in aid of the water charity set up by the founder of Cirque du Soleil, and the first prize was a record $18 million. Antonio Esfandiari, a former magician, pulled off the greatest trick of his career: making a final table that included Phil Hellmuth, Brian Rast and Sam Trickett disappear. Read more

**In the final part of our series on the World Series of Poker, the Paul Phua Poker School revisits the Big One for One Drop of 2012, where a former magician won the biggest prize in poker**

The Main Event of the World Series of Poker (WSOP) has traditionally awarded the largest first prize of any poker tournament, peaking at $12m in 2006 and standing at just over $8m in 2016. But a side event, first held in 2012, dwarfed even those sums. Up for grabs was the biggest tournament prize in poker history: $18,346,673.
The event was the Big One for One Drop, a charity dedicated to providing access to clean water for all, set up by Cirque du Soleil founder and keen poker player Guy Laliberté. The buy-in was a record $1m per person, with the WSOP waiving its usual 10% rake and $111,111 from each entry going directly to the charity.
The final table was a Who’s Who of poker, including Phil Hellmuth, Brian Rast, Sam Trickett and Richard Yong. But it was a former magician, Antonio Esfandiari, who emerged the victor.

Who is Antonio Esfandiari?

Antonio Esfandiari is one of the most colourful figures in poker. Born in Tehran, Iran, he moved to California with his family when he was nine. While many magicians develop their interest in childhood, Esfandiari’s curiosity was sparked when working as a waiter, aged 17. He saw a bartender perform a trick, went to a magic shop to find out how it was done, and began to perform his own for extra tips. Soon the tips outgrew his pay check, and he switched to performing magic full-time.
Esfandiari discovered poker at around the same time. His new-found earnings from magic allowed him to play, and the reading skills he learned as a magician allowed him to win. Soon poker became the job, with magic merely a hobby for entertaining players at the poker table – he became best friends with Phil “Unabomber” Laak as a result of their shared fascination for tricks, before either was a famous player.
In 2004 Esfandiari became the youngest ever winner of a WPT event, taking down $1.4 million in the L.A. Poker Classic. His first WSOP bracelet followed a few months later. He was still just 24 years old.

Esfandiari wins the Big One for One Drop

By the time of the Big One for One Drop in 2012, Antonio Esfandiari was an experienced poker pro. He needed to be: as the biggest prize in poker history, with a platinum rather than gold bracelet to match, the Big One for One Drop attracted some of the biggest names in poker.
Coming into the final table, Esfandiari and Sam Trickett both held the largest stacks, and they maintained their lead throughout until just the two of them were left. By this stage, Esfandiari had three times as many chips as the British pro.
Their heads-up battle lasted just 16 hands. On a J-5-5 flop, multiple re-raises took both men all-in: Esfandiari held trips, Trickett a flush draw. Few real diamonds are as valuable as the one Trickett was praying for: the difference between first and second place was more than $8 million. But the magician’s luck held, and it was Trickett’s turn to do a disappearing act.
“From day one I just believed I was going to win this tournament,” Esfandiari said in a post-game interview. “I just saw it. I saw me winning the bracelet.”

Who is Antonio Esfandiari? Poker player profile

Antonio Esfandiari was born Amir Esfandiary in Tehran, Iran, in 1978. His family emigrated to California when he was nine.
He is nicknamed “The Magician”, after his profession before he took up poker.
He is famed for his outlandish prop bets and desire to have fun at the poker table.
He has more than $27 million in live poker tournament earnings
At the 2012 WSOP Antonio Esfandiari won the biggest single prize in poker history: more than $18 million in the Big One for One Drop poker tournament.

**In the ninth of a 10-part series on the World Series of Poker, the Paul Phua Poker School recalls how an 18-year-old girl won £1 million**

Annette Obrestadt was just 18 when she won the Main Event, and £1 million, at the first World Series of Poker Europe. It made her the youngest ever bracelet winner – so young, in fact, that it would be more than two years before she was legally allowed to play in Las Vegas. Coming four years after Chris Moneymaker turned $39 into $2.5m at the World Series of Poker (WSOP) in 2003, this striking victory by a young woman over established pros such as Gus Hansen, who finished in tenth place, showed just how much Moneymaker’s win had changed the face of poker.
Moneymaker, more than anyone, was responsible for the boom in online poker. Obrestadt was very much an online player: she had already racked up $800,000 in MTT cashes before entering the WSOPE. In an interview directly after winning the title, Obrestadt summed up why the new breed of internet players were making waves in live play: “I’ve played thousands of tournaments online. Most professionals only play 60 or so live tournaments a year so I think I have an advantage there.”

Who is Annette Obrestadt?

Born in 1988, Annette Obrestadt began playing poker at the age of 15 – hence her screen name, “Annette_15”. While Chris Moneymaker spun up his poker fortune from $39, Obrestadt says she never invested any of her own money at all, building up her poker bankroll initially from freeroll tournaments.
Living in Norway, Obrestadt developed a highly aggressive playing style typical of many Scandinavian players: her other screen name is “The Huntress”. Blessed with a natural talent, she also experimented and worked hard at her poker strategy. She is famous for once winning a tournament playing “blind”, with her cards covered up. She did this to show “just how important it is to play position and to pay attention to the players at the table”.
Her win at the WSOPE was no fluke. Since then she has amassed nearly $4m in live tournament earnings, ranking her second amongst all Norwegian players, male or female.

How Annette Obrestadt crushed the World Series of Poker Europe

The 2007 WSOPE Main Event, held in London’s Casino at the Empire on Leicester Square, was the first time that official gold bracelets had been awarded outside Las Vegas (the WSOP has now expanded to Asia Pacific as well as Europe). Obrestadt worked hard for hers, building her stack up on the final table from just half that of the chip leader. The Scandinavian-heavy final nine made for a lot of aggressive action, but it was the final heads-up poker battle that really counted.
Obrestadt was pitted against John Tabatabai. Their single combat lasted for nearly as many hands as the rest of the final table put together. Finally, Obrestadt got the miracle flop that would clinch her victory: on a flop of 7-6-5, she pushed all-in with top set, while her opponent held two pair and needed runner-runner quads to survive.
With the legal age in Las Vegas being 21, it is likely that Obrestadt’s record as the youngest ever bracelet winner will stand forever.

Who is Annette Obrestadt? Poker player profile

Born in 1988, Annette Obrestadt started playing online poker at the age of 15, under the screen name “Annette_15”.
Before switching to live poker she had won $800,000 in online MTTs, winning one tournament with her cards covered up.
In winning the Main Event of the World Series of Poker Europe in 2007, Annette Obrestadt became the youngest ever bracelet winner.
Her first prize in the WSOPE was £1 million, and she now has nearly $4m in live poker tournament earnings.

Read the eighth of a 10-part series on the World Series of Poker, and find out how an amateur turned a $39 online satellite into a $2.5m Main Event win
Or come back tomorrow for the last part in our WSOP series.

**In the eighth of a 10-part series on the World Series of Poker, the Paul Phua Poker School recalls how an amateur turned a $39 online satellite into a $2.5m Main Event win**

Of all the great moments in the history of the World Series of Poker (WSOP), the most transformative for the future of the game as a whole was surely Chris Moneymaker’s victory in 2003. It was a personification of the American Dream that anyone, regardless of their background, can make it big.
Chris Moneymaker entered a $39 online satellite tournament, which led to a $600 satellite, which won him a seat at the Main Event of the WSOP. That $39 investment was to net Chris Moneymaker a first prize of $2.5 million.
That year was also notable for ESPN expanding the coverage and hole-card cameras being introduced on the final table. This truly was the beginning of the internet-fuelled poker boom, with entries to the WSOP Main Event increasing tenfold from 839 in 2003 to 8,773 in 2006. Poker writers now refer to this as “the Moneymaker Effect”.

Who is Chris Moneymaker?

Can there ever have been a poker champion more aptly named than “Moneymaker”? It sounds like an online poker nickname, but in fact his German ancestors made coins, and chose “Moneymaker” as an Anglicisation of their surname “Nurmacher”.
Born in Atlanta, Georgia, Chris Moneymaker further lived up to his name by studying accounting at university, becoming a comptroller. He was just 27 when he entered the World Series of Poker Main Event. Amazingly, it was his first live poker tournament.
Even so, Chris Moneymaker played well enough on Day One to catch the eye of professional sports handicapper Lou Diamond, who prophetically tipped him as his “dark horse to win the whole tournament”.

Chris Moneymaker knocks out Phil Ivey to make the WSOP final table

Chris Moneymaker did have a stroke of luck to get to the final table. With 10 players left, and holding trip Queens with an Ace kicker, he called Phil Ivey’s all-in bet on the turn only to find himself facing down a full house. A lucky Ace came on the river to change the course of history – sending the amateur to the final table, and denying Phil Ivey his coveted world championship win.
Once there, Chris Moneymaker made up in courage what he lacked in experience. The final table got underway at 2pm, and became heads-up at 12.30am. Moneymaker was pitted against Sammy Farha, and by now had twice his stack. Over the next hour, however, the more experienced pro chipped away at the amateur’s stack until the two were nearly even.
It was then that Chris Moneymaker decided to make his stand.
Both men flopped a flush draw. Moneymaker’s spades were higher, with K7 to Farha’s Q9, but the 9-high flop gave Farha top pair. Both players checked. The turn gave Moneymaker an open-ended straight draw as well as his flush draw, so when Farha now bet out with 300,000, Moneymaker re-raised him to 800,000. Still with top pair and a (lesser) flush draw, Farha called, but he must have felt rattled.

Chris Moneymaker pulls off a historic bluff

The river was a red 3: no possible help to either man. But at this point, sensing weakness, Moneymaker made a huge all-in shove.
Farha tanked. Top pair is not usually a hand you can fold when heads-up. Then again, Moneymaker had bet his tournament life on this hand – would he do that on a bluff? And would an amateur be capable of such daring against a seasoned pro?
Farha eventually folded, leaving his stack fatally crippled at 1.8m to Moneymaker’s 6.6m, and the bluff entered the annals of poker history as one of the most audacious the WSOP has seen.

Who is Chris Moneymaker? Poker player profile

Born in Atlanta, Georgia in 1975, Chris Moneymaker was an accountant before turning to poker full-time
Moneymaker turned a $39 online satellite entry into a $2.5m win at the World Series of Poker Main Event in 2003
His autobiography is entitled Moneymaker: How an Amateur Poker Player Turned $40 into $2.5 Million at the World Series of Poker (2005)
The online poker boom that followed Chris Moneymaker’s WSOP victory has become known as “the Moneymaker Effect”

Why not go back and read part 7 of our 10 part WSOP series which is about only player to have won three Main Event championships.
Or come back tomorrow for part 9.

**In the seventh of a 10-part series on the World Series of Poker, the Paul Phua Poker School explains how Stu “The Kid” Ungar battled drug addiction to become “The Comeback Kid”**

There are many who would agree that Stu Ungar was quite simply the best natural poker player of all time. His prowess at the World Series of Poker (WSOP) certainly supports this view. He is the only player to have won three Main Event championships (apart from Johnny Moss, whose first victory was achieved by a vote of his peers, rather than winning a tournament).
When Stu Ungar reached the final table of the WSOP Main Event in 1997, poker fans flocked in such numbers to see if he could win a historic third title that, for the first and only time, the television table was placed in the middle of Fremont Street to allow everyone to crowd round.

Who was Stu Ungar?

Stu Ungar was a card-game prodigy with a photographic memory. His card-counting at blackjack was so good the casinos banned him, and at gin rummy he defeated the man previously renowned as the best player by 86 games to none. In poker he proved equally adept, winning the WSOP in 1980, aged 26, and then again in 1981.
Sadly, addiction got the better of him. In the 1990 Main Event, he was found unconscious from a drug overdose in his hotel on the third day. Even so, he had built up such a commanding stack that he reached the final table anyway: by the time he was blinded out he had placed ninth. In the 1992 WSOP, he sensationally busted out 1990 WSOP champion Mansour Matloubi in a $50,000 heads-up event when he hero-called Matloubi’s river bluff with just 10-high – he had correctly guessed his opponent had had a gutshot draw on the flop, with the board at 3-3-7-K-Q.

Stu Ungar makes the WSOP final table in 1997

Despite having earned an estimated $30 million in his career, Stu Ungar was penniless by the time of the 1997 WSOP. A fellow player staked him the $10,000 buy-in at the very last minute, just before registration closed.
Stu Ungar actually got off to a shaky start: he had been up for 24 hours trying to raise the money, and his tiredness showed. But from Day Two, Ungar put on a powerhouse demonstration of poker strategy and reads that has rarely been bettered. At one stage on Day Two he was seated with four former world champions: Bobby Baldwin, Berry Johnston, Doyle Brunson and Phil Hellmuth. But Ungar was the only one of these men to make it to the final table, with a commanding chip stack that was double that of his nearest competitor.
He showed his mettle early on in the final table when he got the crowd favourite, Ron Stanley, to relinquish the best hand on a big pot when Ungar re-raised the turn and then bluffed the river with air. Even that bet was set up in advance: he had previously shown a hand in which he slow-played top pair, so he knew his bluff would seem plausible. Ungar just kept on swinging until he was left heads-up with more than four times John Strzemp’s stack.
The outcome was never really in doubt. Strzemp was knocked out within six hands.

Stu Ungar, “The Comeback Kid”

In 1980, when Stu Ungar won his first poker world championship, he was nicknamed “The Kid”. After overcoming his demons to win the title for a historic third time, 17 years later, the press dubbed him “The Comeback Kid”.
But though Ungar could win at cards, he couldn’t win his own personal war on drugs. He never could kick the habit for long, and he died the following year.
Stu Ungar himself put it best, when interviewed directly after his 1997 WSOP victory: “There’s nobody that can beat me playing cards. The only one that ever beat me was myself, my bad habits.”

Who is Stu Ungar? Poker player profile

Stu Ungar made poker history when he first won back-to-back WSOP championships in 1980 and 1981, then won again in 1997
First nicknamed “The Kid”, he was thereafter known as “The Comeback Kid”
He is generally regarded as the finest poker and gin rummy player of all time
He had a photographic memory, which saw him banned from playing blackjack
Stu Ungar battled addiction for most of his adult life, and died in 1998 of a drug-related heart condition, aged 45

Read our last WSOP on the only one woman has ever reached the final table of the World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event.
Or come back tomorrow to read about Chris Moneymaker and the online poker boom.

**Want to improve your poker strategy? Paul Phua gives his insights into how to profit from this tricky hand**

Pocket Jacks can be a tricky hand to play, especially for amateurs.
As for me, I’m always happy to see a pair of Jacks. It’s true, however, that there is no simple formula for how to play this hand. It depends very much on your position, your opponent’s position, your stack sizes, and whether they are loose or tight.
The problem with Jacks is that this hand is unlikely to improve: as with any pocket pair, there is only a 1 in 8 chance of making a set on the flop. And if an overcard comes, as it will often, there is a good chance you will be beaten. In this case hopefully you can have some reads on your opponent. If you don’t know them very well you can face some quite tough decisions – and there’s no easy guide for how to make them.

Pre-flop strategy with pocket Jacks

If I get pocket Jacks vs. an UTG (under the gun – meaning first to act) raise, I would usually just call. It can depend on his stack size and who my opponent is, but often I would end up just calling, especially if deeper than 50BB. If shorter than 50BB I would usually raise and gamble with him if he goes all-in, since then he may have AQ, or pocket 10s even, unless he is a very tight player. I would usually re-raise vs. a later position raise.
And in a tournament, if I myself am short-stacked with say 25BB or less and I get pocket Jacks, it’s usually a good hand to go all-in with. And if I have 15BB or less I would almost always be happy to go all-in.

Post-flop strategy with pocket Jacks

An overcard to your Jacks will arrive often, and if several players are in the hand, you are likely to be beaten at this point, and you should be prepared to fold. But if only one other player is in the hand, or sometimes even two, don’t necessarily give up straight away.
Let’s say the overcard is an Ace, and someone bets out. Then yes, I would often fold. But what if it’s a Queen? Or a King? Then you have to analyze deeper.
For instance, if a Queen comes, ask yourself: are they the type of player who raises pre-flop with AQ, or are they more likely to have AK? Are they a solid, straight-shooting player who only bets when they hit, or a more creative player who will semi-bluff with a draw? I have made a lot of money with Jacks against pro players by simply calling on three streets. They might for instance bet with a gutshot draw on the turn, then bomb the river when they don’t hit.
You might ask: why do I just call in this situation, and not raise if I think I’m ahead? It’s because if they have a weaker hand, they will fold to my raise, and I lose out on winning more money.
Even when my Jacks are an overpair I often will just call. If your opponent is representing something stronger than you, why would you raise him? If he has it, your money is gone. If he doesn’t have it, he’s bluffing. So this is one of the many mistakes amateurs make.

Common errors with pocket Jacks

Some less experienced players get so worried by pocket Jacks that they have developed an inflexible strategy: there is a group of players who will usually flat-call from any position, and fold to any overcard on the flop; and another group who usually raise extra-big pre-flop in the hope of taking it down straight away, without having to worry about post-flop strategy.
The first group will lose out on a lot of value that Jacks can bring, but at least they won’t get in too much trouble. The second group is in worse shape. Yes, everyone is likely to fold if you shove all-in or make a massive overbet pre-flop. But you won’t make much money from that. And if you do get called, it’s almost always by a better hand. AK will often call here, and you’ll be the slight favourite; but so will QQ, KK and AA, and then you’ll be in big trouble.
The same is true post-flop: some players with Jacks will raise big, even go all-in, if the flop is all low cards. They see it as protecting their hand. But again, they miss out on value when everyone with a worse hand folds; and they lose everything if someone calls with a lucky two pair or a set – or bigger overpair.
So you can see, there is no one easy way to play Jacks, and you must take many factors into consideration. But don’t give up. They are one of the best starting hands, so just try to play them well.

A quick guide to playing pocket Jacks

With pocket Jacks, you should usually call an UTG (under the gun) raise
You might re-raise vs. a later position raise
Only go all-in pre-flop if short-stacked
Don’t overplay your pocket Jacks post-flop: often you should call, not raise

In a game of Texas Holdem, how often will you be dealt a Royal Flush (10, Jack, Queen, King and Ace all in the same suit)

We’ve all done it. We’re in the casino, sitting at the poker table, and we have a reasonable hand but it’s just one card short of a great hand. And you keep putting in chips so you can stay in the hand, hoping that card WILL come along and you will have the winning hand, and that you will walk away from the casino with the pot. The trouble is, the odds of getting that perfect poker hand is often a lot lower than you might think.
Paul Phua says that to start with, you will have to play 30,940 poker hands before you get dealt a Royal Flush. But, there are few people who will ever play 30,490 poker hands in their life, so this mythical poker hand which beats all others will stay just that – a myth – for the vast majority of poker players. Even getting a start at that hand – being dealt Ace King suited – only happens one time in 331 hands of poker.
OK, so you’ve rolled back your ambitions for poker night. All that would make you happy is just to be dealt a pair of Aces. Not going to be that unusual huh? Hmm. You’ll have to wait for on average 221 hands to be dealt that little bundle of joy. In fact, in a casino you’re actually much more likely to get a start on a straight in your hole cards. You’ll only have to wait between five and six hands on average to be dealt connectors – two cards in any suit of consecutive rank.
Here’s a statistic to make your mind hurt. In a casino game of Texas Holdem with six players, there are more than a quadrillion different hand combinations dealt at the start of the poker game. That’s 15 zeros. It shows you how skilled those poker stars are that have a sixth sense of what cards their opponents are holding. And it’s always worth remembering that in Texas Holdem, the more players are at the poker table, the less likely you are to win, and the better the set of cards you have need to be in order for you to walk away from the casino with the pot. Unless you bluff successfully of course!