American poker pro Faraz Jaka has been homeless for the last two years but after playing WPT Montreal he thinks he’s found the perfect place to settle down.

Jaka has earned millions of dollars playing poker both online and live and began traveling abroad full-time following the US Department of Justice’s crackdown on online poker in 2011.

Since then he’s come to appreciate European culture and the poker scene outside of North America.

But it was a recent trip to Canada that made him think about setting up a home base.

PokerListings.com caught Jaka at WPT Prague and he told us about life as a traveling road gambler.

PokerListings.com: Today is the first day of the Bellagio Five Diamond, but you are here in Prague. Why?

Faraz Jaka: I really enjoy playing in Europe these days. I started playing in Europe about five years ago half time, and now I play here almost full time.

I love travelling, and I like playing card cheating tournaments, so I enjoy using the time in between events to travel around in Europe.

And it’s also because of the tournaments. There is just more value in the tournaments over here, and blacking out the US from online poker killed a lot of the live action as well.

PL: Most of your Hendon Mob entries of 2012 are European, indeed. Some of them even from smaller events like the ones in Dublin.

FJ: Yes. What I like to do is, I like to go all out or nothing. So, if I decide to go to an event, I’d rather play all the tournaments. It gives you an advantage because you learn about the players. If you just come and go, you miss the chance to take advantage of that.

Of course, I’d like to get that advantage over American players.

Another thing I really like about Europe is where the casinos are situated. In America, the casinos are always in the middle of nowhere, because they are afraid that they would attract drugs and prostitution and crime and so on.

In Europe on the other hand, the casinos are always right in the middle of the city, and the authorities try to regulate everything, which is easier, if the casinos are closer.

I’d love to play an event bang in the middle of Chicago or right in the middle of New York, but that’s just not happening, you know.

PL: If you say you stay here full time now, have you found yourself a place to stay?

FJ: I’ve been homeless for two years. I kind of have a base in Gdansk, Poland, but that doesn’t mean I go there that often.

PL: In Poland? Not the typical first pick for an American in Europe.

FJ: I just love to explore, and I have a buddy who lives there, so I went to visit him, and it’s a really cool city.

PL: Any favorite place in Europe?

FJ: Zürich, maybe. I had a blast when I went there.

But recently I went to WPT Montreal, and I didn’t really know a lot about it beforehand. When I got there, I really fell in love with the place, and I got to know a lot of the locals. So now I’m trying to get back there.PL: So where are you going to settle down?

FJ: I would generally prefer Europe, because of the better cultural experience, but it’s kind of hard to play online poker on the European schedule. Whereas in Montreal, you feel a lot like being in Europe, but you are in a better time zone when it comes to online poker marked cards.

Also, it’s one and a half hours away from Chicago, where I have some business to do on a regular basis, so Montreal is kind of the perfect mix for me.

PL: What does a homeless guy like you do when you want to play online?

FJ: It’s not a big problem, really. You can play while you’re on the road, only that there are some exceptions. Not only the States, but of course you can’t play in Italy or in France and some other places where only locals can play.

I don’t play online that much, though, mainly the big Sunday tournaments or big series events like the SCOOP or the FTOPS. I try to never miss the Sunday, but usually, I don’t play more often than one more week day.

When SCOOP or FTOPS are on, I might play the whole week, though.

PL: You are more of a tournament than a cash game player, right?

FJ: Yes. I started out with cash games about seven years ago, but for the last five years it’s been almost exclusively tournaments.

PL: Have you heard about what happened to Theo Jörgensen yesterday?

FJ: No.

PL: People broke into his house, robbed him, and then shot him in the leg because they weren’t happy about how little money they found.FJ: Really wow. I did not know that.

PL: Is playing poker a dangerous profession?

FJ: I hate hearing stories like that. I try to keep my mind off things like this, but the truth of the matter is you are a huge target as a player because the amount of money you’re making is right there on the internet, but of course your expenses aren’t.

And on top of that, there really are sketchy people in this business. So you have to be very careful about what you’re doing. You have to be smart and research the area you’re in.

For example, I hear a lot of people asking "what hotel are you staying in” or "in which area is your apartment”. I don’t answer that. Many players do, but I don’t. This information makes it easier for something to happen like what happened to Theo.

It’s a measure of protection. It’s part of the "being smart”, that you stay aware of what can be exploited.

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Poker is a unique game and the best players use a combination of math, skill and observation to beat it.

It takes a brilliant mind to understand and win at poker - and an even more brilliant one to invent the strategy basics that are now commonplace.

These geniuses do their best marked cards to solve the game as it’s played at the time.

But the game of poker has evolved a lot over the last decade, and will continue to. What might have worked 10 years ago canseem silly now. And winning strategies today might not be effective at all 10 years from now.

Below are a few of those strategies - endorsed by some of the most famous names in the game, no less - that may have worked in the past but have passed their prime.

1. Reraise with Small Pairs Before the Flop in Limit Hold’em

The Author: Phil Hellmuth

The Book: Play Poker Like the Pros

The Advice: When the pot is raised to you in Limit Hold’em and you hold a small pair, you’re better to make it three-bets rather than call the original raise. You’re then meant to "represent whatever hits the flop.”

Why it’s bad: The problem with this advice is that he’s writing a book for beginners, and beginners are going to play in small-stakes games. People in small stakes games play tons of hands.

You’re not going to be able to represent anything on the flop because people are just playing their hands. They don’t care that you made it three-bets to go. They care that they flopped top pair, and they aren’t going to fold.

You end up just putting more bets into the pot without ever being able to get them back unless you flop a set.

The better approach: In Limit Hold’em, especially in low-stakes Limit Hold’em, you should just call because you’re more likely to get callers behind you. Play the hand to flop a set and if you don’t, fold.

2. The Fourth Raise Means Aces

The Author: Phil Gordon

The Book: Little Green Book

The Advice: "The fourth raise is always aces."

Why it’s bad: It’s not so much "bad” as it is dated and wrong.

The top players today are four-betting so much more than aces it’s incredible.

Take a look at Shaun Deeb’s bustout hand from the 2011 Main Event, for just one example.

No longer is even the 5th or 6th bet guaranteed to be aces.

The better approach: Treat all marked cards contact lenses players individually.

For some players the fourth bet might always mean aces, but other players might still have any two.

3. If You’re Playing Small Connected Cards, They Don’t Need to be Suited

The Author: TJ Cloutier

The Book: Championship No-Limit and Pot-Limit Hold’em

The Advice: Small connectors don’t need to be suited because in multi-way pots there’s a high likelihood someone has higher cards of your suit. 

Cloutier says that the suit causes more harm than good when you make a flush and lose to a bigger flush.

Why it’s bad: There’s literally no way that unsuited cards would ever be better than suited cards.

The notion that the suit does more harm than good is ridiculous.

Yes, occasionally you’re going to make a flush and it’s going to be second best. But also occasionally you’re going to be drawing to a straight and backdoor the flush.

The better approach: Being suited gives you more ways to win. It’s as simple as that.

4. Raise for Information

The Author: David Sklansky

The Book: Theory of Poker

The Advice: You sometimes want to raise to find out where you’re at in a hand.

Why it’s bad: It’s bad because the information you get is often not very helpful.

E.g. You raise and your opponent folds. This is bad. Chances are he folded a bluff and you probably would have preferred he kept trying to bluff you.

E.g. You raise and he calls. How much does that really tell you? 

He could have a draw, he could have a hand he's slow playing, he could have you beat, he could not have you beat.

If he re-raises, he could have you beat. He could also be playing a big draw fast or a worse hand fast.

The better approach: There are ways to define a hand, but generally raising isn’t a very good one.

Pay attention to your opponents and their previous play will give you a better idea as to what they have.

Actively try and put your opponent on a range and with every new bit of information you’ll get closer to his hand.

5. Vary Your Opening Amount

The Author: Dan Harrington

The Book: Harrington On Hold’em 1

The Advice: In a tournament you should vary your opening size from 2x to 4x randomly to make it difficult for your opponents to not get a read on you.

Why it’s bad: The only reason you need to vary your bet sizing randomly is if you’re regularly raising different amounts.

If you’re raising the exact same size every single time it’s not like your opponents will pick up any tells on you because your bet is always the same.

The better approach: If you’re playing in a tournament there’s really no reason to raise 4x the big blind -- ever.

Keep your standard 2.25x to 2.5x raise and stick with it. It risks less chips and is just as effective.

Raising to 4x just needlessly risks chips.

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Reading through the vast piles of poker literature out there, you'll occasionally encounter the notion of "control."

Usually it refers to situations where a player, by virtue of a combination of skill on his own part, a lack of it among his opponents and a dram or two of luck, manages to dominate a table.

He or she pushes people out of pots with well-timed bluffs, draws them in when holding the nuts and acts pretty much like a director on a movie set marked cards.

Most discussions focus on how to establish this enviable position and how to maximize wins when it occurs. Most of the advice is pretty straightforward and typically turns on the use of selective aggression as a potent weapon.

I have no problem with this analysis. But I do have some things to tell you about the psychological issues that lurk behind the strategy. And as usual, when we probe the psychological we find solid poker principles.

Control is, indeed, an intriguing concept. It looms significantly over our everyday lives, particularly when we contemplate the degree to which we have (or don't have) control over events.

If we're the boss, we have control over our employees. If we're the underlings on the production line, we don't have a lot of it.

In some relationships all the control and power resides in one partner. In others it gets shared. Often money supports control. Money is power, power grants control, control garners money.In poker it's particularly messy. We can control the decisions but not the outcomes.

Generally, it feels good to have control over the events in our lives. It is satisfying to be the master of one's fate, the captain of one's personal ship. It also feels distinctly unpleasant when the tide is turned, when we sense that we have little or no control over things.

But the notion of control is, in reality, a lot more complex and a lot more interesting. And one reason, as we'll see, is that we often don't know where the real control, the real power, lies.

Here are a couple of questions I'd like you to ask yourself. If you don't like answering them from a personal point of view, that's okay. Just think of them in terms of how you've seen others act in a poker game.

Question 1: Have you ever changed seats because you just can't seem to catch a card?

Question 2: Have you ever groaned in despair when the guy who moved into the seat you abandoned got hit in the head with the deck?

Question 3: Have you ever asked for a new setup?

Question 4: Have you ever thought that a particular dealer was "lucky" or "unlucky" for you?

Question 5: Have you ever returned quickly to a table because your "lucky" dealer sat down, or refused to play for a full shift because the one who never deals you a winner just sat in the box?

Question 6: Do you have a "lucky" charm or "lucky" hand or "lucky" seat?

If recognizing yourself in any of these makes you feel a tad uncomfortable marked cards contact lenses, that's okay; a lot of regulars do these things on a semi-regular basis. They are "magical" gestures that give them a vague sense that they are, in fact, exerting some measure of control.

But, of course, all is illusion. New decks aren't going to be different than old ones, and dealers aren't lucky - they just distribute cards from a shuffled deck.If you really think that you would have got those big hands had you not changed seats, you just don't grasp the random nature of the game (hint: you would have played the hands differently, the dealer would have begun shuffling a few milliseconds earlier or later; nothing would have been the same).

So why engage in these empty rituals? Well, for one thing, it turns out to be tough to determine just when we do and do not have control over a situation.

And, for another, having or not having control turns out to be a lot less important than whether we believe we do.

There's a concept called "locus of control." It's a personality dimension that runs from an "internal" pole to an "external."

People at the "external" extreme believe the factors that control their lives are located in the external world, the world outside themselves. Those who lie at the other end believe that control comes from within; it is "internal."

High internalizers tend to take responsibility for their actions, accepting the blame for those that go awry and taking credit for those that go well. High externalizers tend to blame outside forces for the unhappy events in their lives and credit luck or circumstance for the good.

Perhaps not surprisingly, high internalizers tend to be more successful in life. They make more money, win more contests, live longer, have lower incidences of depression, alcoholism, drug abuse. You name it, they're better off than their externalizing cousins.This may seem straightforward but it's not because, as noted, real control takes a back seat to belief.

In studies of people playing fair, competitive games, "externalizers" who won because they made the right decisions often thought that they just got lucky. When "internalizers" won such games they tended to take credit for their play.

And here's the fun part: In studies where the games were fixed so that the players' decisions had little to do with the outcome, the same patterns appeared.

Whether they won or lost, whether the games were honest or rigged, internalizers typically thought that it was their decisions and choices that determined the outcomes.

Externalizers showed the opposite tendency, whether they won or lost or whether the games were fixed or honest. When control was controlled, belief crushed reality.

This is powerful stuff, and the lesson for poker should be obvious. If you take responsibility for the choices you make, accept the blame for poor decisions and the credit for the right ones, you're on your way toward becoming a solid internalizer.

And remember, they do better at just about everything - no matter where the real control lies.

And, finally, those questions? Well, internalizers practically never answer "yes" to any of them.

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I love titles that look like silly statements. Problems handling winning? Who would ever have that?

Isn't it like wondering whether one could deal with falling in love, hitting the lottery, finding a diamond under a bush on the lawn? How can there be problems here?

I got to thinking about this when a reader ("Andrew1") commented on my earlier article "Monsters Under the Bed." He wondered why no one seemed to worry about what they're doing when they're "running good."

Andrew1's point is well taken, and it shows that that first article was incomplete. I said that winning wasn't as interesting as losing because there was less variability among winners, that most of us act pretty much the same way when things are going good.

I was wrong. I am beginning to sense that there actually is a good deal of variability in how poker players react when they are winning marked cards.

And, as is so often the case, a topic that seemed so simple isn't.

In fact, the following discussion is still an oversimplification. A thorough analysis will need to separate "short-range" winning, which essentially covers everything from a single session to a couple of weeks running good, from "long-range" winning, which covers longer timeframes.

I'm focusing only on the former here.

Any good psychologist can tell you that there are problems with winning, with success, in fact with virtually all the good things that happen to people in life.

You don't even need a psychologist, just a writer of children's tales. All those wonderful stories about genies or mystical frogs who grant you three wishes and then cut your heart out while bestowing them were composed precisely because there is a deep truth here.

Success isn't always the joyous event it looks like it ought to be. There's a phenomenon called miswanting. It's an odd term coined by Dan Gilbert at Harvard.

It means pretty much what it implies: when people get what they want, they turn out not to like it nearly as much as they thought they would.

At a poker table the "want" is money - winning it and all the things that accompany it.

3. Leave if you've lost the urge to continue to play. The "post-rush letdown" is real. You feel oddly drained, tired and happy, and would like to just go sit in a comfy chair and relax.

You don't have to, of course, but if this feeling does sneak up on you, pay attention because continuing to play under these conditions is almost always a bad idea.

4. Never forget: the game will return to "normal." One of the difficulties of dealing with a winning streak is that you lose perspective. You start to feel as though you can play "any two," that you're invulnerable ("The Truth About Playing Rushes").

You convince yourself that either (a) K-J is a great hand to call a raise with 'cause of all that paint or worse, (b) you're so good you can outplay your opponents with it.

The first is certainly an illusion, the second likely one. Don't overplay your hands just because you've got some chips to burn.

* * * * * * * * * * *

Hope this helps you handle winning ... try to enjoy it.

Author Bio:

Arthur Reber has been a poker player and serious handicapper of thoroughbred horses for four decades. He is the author of The New Gambler's Bible and coauthor of Gambling for Dummies. Formerly a regular columnist for Poker Pro Magazine and Fun 'N' Games magazine, he has also contributed to Card Player (with Lou Krieger), Poker Digest, Casino Player, Strictly Slots and Titan Poker. He outlined a new framework for evaluating luminous contact lenses the ethical and moral issues that emerge in gambling for an invited address to the International Conference of Gaming and Risk Taking.

Until recently he was the Broeklundian Professor of Psychology at The Graduate Center, City University of New York. Among his various visiting professorships was a Fulbright fellowship at the University of Innsbruck, Austria. Now semiretired, Reber is a visiting scholar at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada.

There are three key points here.

1. Winning won't make you as happy as you think it will. One reason is a topic we discussed in two earlier columns on the value of money, What's Money Worth? and What's Money Worth Part 2.

Money won isn't as satisfying as a loss of an equivalent amount is unsatisfying. Most people don't know this, which is one reason why Gilbert's "miswanting" effect is so strong.

2. A lot of players don't know how to handle winning. You see this all the time. Guy goes on a rush, stacks chips like a new graduate from an architecture program, thinks he's invulnerable, a champ, a nascent professional ready for the circuit.

Come back a couple of hours later and he's picking felt out from between his front teeth.

3. A lot of players don't know how to maximize the gains that accompany a rush of cards or the generosity of the resident fish.

When the gods of the game smile upon you, you better be ready. You better know how to deal with winning, and you need to maximize your gains or you won't be able to cover your losses.

Now we can't do much to change the first of these. It's pretty much a given. The best advice is understand the principle and live with it.

Be as happy when winning as you can, but don't expect it to be quite the wonderful thing you think it will be when you first sit down.

But we can deal with the other two. Here are some ways. If you think of others, let me know. The better we understand this issue the better off we'll be (even if not as happy as we think).

1. Tighten up so as not to give back chips. There are a host of factors that contribute to a rush, and one of them is that you hit hands that are mathematically unlikely.

You get in for free from the BB with T-8o and flop the nuts. You limp with pocket sevens and flop set over set. These magical hands are seductive; they make you think they're worth playing for a full bet or out of position.

They're not. If you stacked a guy when you limped from the button with A-6 and hit two pair, don't for a second think you should play this hand UTG.

2. Loosen up to turn a pretty good day into a really good one. Yeah, I know, this looks like it contradicts the above. It doesn't really.

I'm not telling you to call an early raiser with T-8, just suggesting that with a big stack you can loosen up a little. You can use your chips to intimidate others. You can afford to tiptoe into some pots looking to felt someone.

Big stacks project power and skill. Use the image - no matter how far from reality it is.

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We chatted to the former Brookside star about his new-found love for poker

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The UK’s smartest glamour model and Celebrity Poker player
gets her chips out

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Phil Ivey has an unrivalled reputation as the most feared poker player on the planet

Perhaps the most illuminating fact about Phil Ivey is that, unlike many other high profile poker players, he requires no nickname. No added persona is needed to strike fear into his opponents – the man alone carries a presence that is enough to intimidate all but the most impassive of players. Ivey’s name is on everyone’s lips when you ask them which player they most respect and would least want to play poker lenses. But just what is it about him that causes even the strongest of player’s knees to crumble?

Perhaps the closest Ivey gets to being granted a nickname is when he is lazily referred to as the ‘Tiger Woods of poker’. But on closer inspection, the comparison between the two certainly holds weight. The poker great embodies many qualities similar to the legendary golfer: a mixture of constant and focused aggression, a cool and impassive demeanour and a fierce determination to win. Both men have also relentlessly ignored the media hype surrounding their respective achievements. Their business is winning – and they both do plenty of that.

According to his close friend and fellow Big Game player, Barry Greenstein, Ivey has an ‘unmatched raw talent’. In a hold’em obsessed world this is borne out by his ability to excel in all of poker’s different variants. He has won pot-limit Omaha and seven-card stud events, and most notably recorded a third-place finish in the inaugural $ 50,000 H.O.R.S.E. event at the 2006 World Series Of Poker.

Cash King

Ivey remains reluctant to accept the mantle of genius and instead puts much of his success down to sheer hard work. Similarly though, his rise as a poker celebrity has been dismissed by none other than Ivey himself, whose typical nonchalant response is that ‘I’m just a poker player’. But he’s more than just a poker player. He started out playing sixteen-hour days in low-limit stud games in Atlantic City on a fake ID – where he learned tirelessly from his own mistakes.

During his early days he had a voracious appetite for knowledge of all things poker, which he carries to this day. But this is hardly unique among poker players – so how has he managed, over the course of a decade, to do what only a few manage in an entire lifetime? He’s made final tables at six WPT events, won major tournaments at home and in Europe and has five WSOP bracelets. He’s also widely regarded by marked cards his peers as one of the most consistent players in the Big Game at the Bellagio. Indeed, cash games are where Ivey is at home the most, hidden away from prying eyes, playing free from distractions. But he’s no one-trick pony and performs equally adeptly in front of the full glare of the media that is so fascinated by his every move.

He arguably has the most impressive record in tournament poker since Stu Ungar, with three bracelets in three WSOPs from 2000-2002 and a relentless series of six and seven-figure results. The countless hours of thoughtful, considered play has soaked into his subconscious, giving him a ‘feel’ for where he is in a hand. He applies the same razor-sharp analysis to his own game and it’s rare you’ll see him making a mistake in a hand.

Despite his best game being seven-card stud, his celebrity status has arisen from his hold’em game. And even under the unflinching gaze of the TV cameras, what is clear from his performances is a level of attentiveness that few other players possess. Ivey spends his time at the table eyeing every movement an opponent makes, or lost in his own head calculating the odds of a dozen possible scenarios for a hand he is involved in. He is never rushed and, it would seem, is too absorbed in the moment to worry about table banter or showmanship from those around him. As his opponents attest, Ivey’s style of play is impossible to pin down, except for an aggressive streak that allows him to control the table without ever seeming to place him in extreme danger.

Peer Pressure

One hand in particular illustrates Ivey’s poise and tenacity at the table, even though it ended with him losing a lot of chips. Facing off with Andy Black at the WSOP main event in 2005, an incredible display of high-level thinking occurred when, with the blinds at $ 20,000/$ 40,000, Ivey made it $ 140,000 in late position with K-5 before Black re-raised to 420k. The viewers knew Black had A-2 – but Ivey didn’t. He wasn’t ready to relinquish the role of aggressor and re-reraised to 920k, after which Black thought for a while before pushing all-in. Ivey rolled his eyes and folded. On this occasion he had met his match in the only player ready to pass the test. But, the important factor was that Ivey was prepared to force Black to risk his tournament.

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Evelyn Ng paid her dues with ten years playing limit hold’em and is now one of the hottest players on the circuit There are much more accomplished tournament players than myself but I have been playing the game for 13 years, and I am comfortable with how I play poker. It has always been how I’ve made a living. Of course I want to win a big event, but all I can really ask for luminous contact lenses is to play my best. If I played like a donkey and took down a tournament I would settle for that, but I prefer to say I played my best. I’ve known Daniel Negreanu since we were both 16, and pool hall hustlers in our hometown of Toronto. What he has taught me is the mental attitude of a professional poker player. I owe my career to the WPT. The Ladies Night [where she finished second in 2003] was my introduction to no-limit hold’em tournament poker. At the time I was a cash game player, and I was at Foxwoods sweating Daniel. They came up to me and asked if I wanted to be interviewed for the show. I guess I made a good impression, because when they decided to make the Ladies Night show I got a phone call. Sexism in the poker world has given me a career so how could I fault it? If people focus on my looks or how I dress that is fine. I make a decent living, so I don’t care what anyone else thinks. I didn’t get into poker because I thought I would get on TV. Really, I’m just a poker player. I made my living playing limit hold’em for ten years. I’m probably a steadier winner at limit cash games, but playing more cash limit poker is not something I am too thrilled about doing. I feel like that part of my life is over for now. I try to keep my sanity marked cards by not burning myself out and only playing when it matters. When I don’t eat, sleep, drink poker every minute of the day I play better. I worked for my money for over a decade. Now I’m reaping the benefits of spending all that time being miserable, pessimistic and grinding it out. I knew as soon as I was introduced to the game that it was something I would do well at. I dealt for a year before I played – I just wanted to learn as much as I could.

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With nearly $6m won in live, and online poker, we talk to self-confessed sick gambler Erick Lindgren

Plenty of big-name pros were on board, the food and booze flowed prodigiously, and, all in all, it was an upbeat event. Nevertheless, by every indication, Lindgren seemed about ready to jump ship.

Never mind that in the previous year he won this very tournament (he has the giant cheque to prove it). And that in 2005 he made the money but just missed the final table. By the time we hooked up, Lindgren was already out of the action and antsy as hell.

Shifting from foot to foot, he resembled a public school kid who didn’t give a damn and was obviously bored out of his skull. He stood on the deck, looked up into a perfectly blue sky and told me, ‘Yesterday I would have paid a helicopter pilot $20,000 to get me off this boat. Today I’m at $15,000 and tomorrow, with the cruise about to wind down, it’ll be 10.’

The cash games on the boat were too small to interest Lindgren, and, with nothing to gamble at, he was bored out of his mind. Obviously, he’s not the kind of guy who’s going to enjoy wandering around tourist towns, taking in the culture and shopping for straw bags or snow globes. ‘Maybe,’ he grumbled, ‘next year I’ll just import a floor full of strippers and bring my own party onto the boat.’

At first I figured that Lindgren was showing off, that he’d never actually do anything so ballsy – though I had heard about him winning $10,000 playing online while driving from California to Las Vegas, which, in and of itself, is fairly impressive.

Of course, I now know that he absolutely would do that (or at least something like it), especially if he could shoehorn in a wager with someone who didn’t believe he’d be able to pull it off.

Action hero

Though I’m not sure about Lindgren’s true feelings for strippers, I know that he loves action. He’s not a degenerate casino gambler or the kind of poker pro who continually plays in games that his bankroll can’t fade (in fact, he assiduously avoids the Big Game; its stakes are too high, and he’s not yet suitably adept at all the mixed games), but he loves wagering on sports, loves making prop bets, loves to gamble it up on the golf course (he once dropped $50,000 to Phil Ivey after failing to par the ninth hole at Shadow Creek).

This mentality is what first opened Lindgren up to poker, and, initially at least, long before he racked up nearly $6m in tournament winnings, came damned close to breaking him. ‘I didn’t know that you could slow-pay bookies,’ he remembers, recounting a scary moment from his abbreviated college years. ‘I owed a guy money and maxed out my credit cards in order to pay him off.’

For Lindgren, the serious gambling began soon after his 18th birthday. He was still in school but drawn to the casinos of central California. Like everybody who wanders into a gambling den, Lindgren initially found himself risking money at the table games that players rarely manage to beat.

Then he and his friends discovered one of the amazing things about Californian casinos in the 1990s: due to a bit of weirdness in the state’s bylaws, individuals were allowed to back blackjack. In other words, anyone with a big enough bankroll to cover a round of blackjack was allowed to be the house (though they had to give the casino $5 per shoe for the privilege). Lindgren and his friends pooled together their money and played at an advantage.

‘Then I found the poker room,’ he remembers. ‘I left my friends out there to watch the blackjack while I played poker.’ He started out by buying into the $3/$6 limit Hold’em and had immediate success, which pushed him to progress up to the point where he was playing $15/$30 and turning a profit within a year. ‘I won a lot,’ he remembers, ‘but I gambled at blackjack (when he wasn’t banking the game) and had hardly any money. Plus, of course, I had a bookie and whatever was left over from poker I lost to the bookie.’

It could have been a life of degeneracy, of a rapidly ageing Lindgren flopping from one flunky job to the next, and working hard to support his bad habits. But then, at 21, he got a gig as a ‘prop’ (or ‘house’) player. It provided him with $160 per day just for being in the casino and helping to get the games going. That was pretty good, as far as it went.

Things got markedly better after a buddy from the casino told Lindgren about an opportunity that sounded too good to pass: a website called poker.com, on which he would get $50 in promotional chips simply for signing up. It was 1998, and the notion of poker on the internet was just beginning to gain traction.

Immediately, Lindgren took to the pace and idiosyncracies of playing online. ‘I ran it up to $12,000, found the other sites, and pretty soon I had three computers with eight games going at once,’ he remembers.

Lindgren continued to poker lenses play live games at the casino (he now possessed a bigger bankroll and had moved up to the no-limit game), but online quickly became his primary source of income. ‘I spent so much time in front of computer screens that I wouldn’t say I was having a great life. But it was nice to be making more money than I could blow.’

Counter strike

Facing light competition during those halcyon days of online gaming, Lindgren inadvertently morphed into one of poker’s prototypical whiz kids. He had perfected a flexible style of play, running counter to what his opponents were doing. If they played slow, he splashed virtual chips around the table and pushed others out of hands; if they were aggressive, he opted for a patient game that relied heavily on trapping.

He had plenty of time to perfect his approach. For three years Lindgren didn’t do much more than play online poker, camping out in a bedroom that was barely large enough to accommodate himself, his desk and his monitors. But it was worth it. Over that period of time, between 1998 and 2001, he never won less than $10,000 per month and sometimes took down as much as $40,000 in the same time period.

When the World Poker Tour kicked off, Lindgren was battle-hardened and ready for his close-up. In 2003 he final- tabled the WPT tournament at the Aviation Club in Paris and won in Aruba; a year later Lindgren reappeared on TV, narrowly outplaying Daniel Negreanu on the PartyPoker cruise ship (it was the season before my encounter with him). Upon beating his buddy he celebrated in style, running up a $22,000 bar tab for Negreanu and the rest of their card- playing entourage.

It was the start of the poker boom and Lindgren was well positioned to take advantage of it. He got involved as one of the primary movers on Full Tilt and fell in with a group of talented, young pros. As he climbed the poker ladder, Lindgren formed enduring friendships with Daniel Negreanu, Phil Ivey and Carlos Mortensen. His tournament winnings are impressive, and he has taken untold amounts out of the cash games.

In 2007 alone Lindgren’s tournament profits just crept over the $1m mark, and he didn’t even play that many events. Lindgren describes himself as being essentially lazy – but that’s really not true, he just doesn’t have very much financial incentive at the moment.

That said, I wonder how he manages to win as much as he does. ‘I find a way,’ Lindgren responds, sounding a little more cryptic than he intends. ‘Even if I’m not getting good cards, I find a way to keep my chip stack about even. I steal small pots, I play lots of hands. The idea is to slowly build my stack and find a way to get paid off when I have a good hand.

People see me with pocket Aces three times when I play a tournament and they think I got lucky. But, in fact, I gave myself an opportunity to be there by playing well in the stages leading up to that point. You give yourself a chance to win by not bluffing off your stack or taking a stand too soon. I try to stay in a tournament as long as I can with a decent amount of chips, and then I give myself a chance to get hot.’

Tough company

It’s an approach that paid off last January when he took down the AU$100,000 buy-in event during the Aussie Millions. It was a private tournament, consisting mostly of Full Tilt pros (goosed up by a smattering of well-heeled amateurs), with an AU$1m first prize (about US$800k).

Considering that he was going up against the likes of John Juanda, Phil Ivey and Patrik Antonius, it sounds like the kind of event that even a seasoned pro would have to enter with low expectations. ‘I don’t know if I had expectations going in,’ Lindgren admits, ‘but you certainly want to win when you put up that kind of money. I don’t think of it as a lot, but you can’t continually buy in for $80,000 and walk away a loser.’

Maybe not. But if he seriously intended to win the event, he certainly had his work cut out for him. Lindgren was at the table with a bunch of top-flight tournament pros, most of whom had seen him play before, and were well acquainted with his style. He’d have to do more than simply see cheap flops and mix it up on the later streets. ‘Normally I play a lot of a small-ball poker and limp a lot,’ he acknowledges. ‘So this time I did a little more bluffing than I normally would.

That seemed a little weird to them, but I tried to make it make sense. I played tighter and did more re-raising pre-flop. Whenever I thought I could take a pot with a raise I did it – knowing that these guys are good enough not to risk the tournament by forcing action – and didn’t care what I had. I just made the move. It worked pretty well. I increased my stack without getting many cards early on.’

By the time he got to heads-up with Erik Seidel, Lindgren was trailing badly. ‘He had a nice chip lead on me, but I managed to build my way up from 300,000 to 600,000 and picked up Kings when he had Jacks.’ Lindgren shrugs the shrug of a man who’s experienced his share of bad beats at the table. ‘If it had been reversed, he would have won the tournament. He had me covered and I flipped it on him. Then I ground Erik down a little and got him all-in with A-7 against K-J, and he bricked off. I thought he played really well.’

As well as Lindgren does on his own, he’s also had some success as a backer of others. He does it in live tournaments and through online play. Lindgren openly serves as the bank for Gavin Smith and, though he doesn’t discuss it with me, after Carlos Mortensen won nearly $4m at the WPT championship in April, Lindgren acknowledged that

Mortensen is one of his ‘boys’ and talked about going out in the Bellagio to celebrate his victory.

Though Smith is a profitable player, with whom Lindgren has clearly had good fortune, Lindgren acknowledges that the business of backing can be double-edged. ‘You lose, lose, lose, and then someone pops you off,’ he says. ‘When you have to travel to Foxwoods with $80,000, to put seven people and yourself in, it’s not fun. The cost adds up quickly when no one does well, but when they win, it feels like free money, even though it’s not.’

On the other hand, the people he backs tend to be his friends. It’s a way of assisting them and it also provides a hedge against running bad. ‘It helps close up the holes of anyone who needs a little help,’ says Lindgren – including, presumably himself. The problem, though, is that ‘the buy- ins are so heavy that most people don’t have the pain thresholds for backing other players. But I’m a little sick. I don’t worry about it. I know my guys will win.’

Plus, action seems to be as integral to his survival as oxygen. During the football season, Lindgren and fellow poker pro Bill Edler work hard to beat the college games (Lindgren has six monitors mounted on the wall of his living room so that he can keep track of the games in which he’s got a stake).

A little less seriously, Lindgren and his pals bet hard and heavy into the professional lines every Sunday; his fantasy football wagers will total half a million dollars in 2007, and he’s always willing to back up random opinions with his bankroll. ‘I had a cool bet at the WSOP Europe,’ Lindgren remembers of the event in which he finished 26th and snagged approximately $60,000 (‘I’ll take it,’ he says nonchalantly).

‘I saw a guy sitting nearby, he looked like a competent young kid, and I said to the people at my table, "I’ll bet anyone $1,000 that this kid has won a million dollars online.” Nobody would take the bet. Then I saw Ted Forrest at the next table. He took it and I won.’

Extreme pain

While poker is clearly Lindgren’s primary source of income, he’s quick to point out that for sheer fun and excitement nothing beats watching football with the boys and playing golf with his pals. Of course, there’s always loads of money riding on both of those activities. As Lindgren puts it: ‘The next best thing to winning a big bet is losing a big bet.’

On a recent weekday afternoon in Las Vegas, I witness that philosophy in action. Lindgren, Daniel Negreanu, Gavin Smith and Shawn Sheikhan convene for some high stakes action at Canyon Gate Country Club (Sheikhan is a member and he’s hosting the round of golf).

There’s lot of gambling, of course, and just as much ribbing (the guys are all accusing each other of hustling and Sheikhan takes every opportunity to snake in and out of bets).

Nearing the final hole, Lindgren tells me, ‘If things go well, I’ll owe $40,000 to Negreanu and win $20,000 from Gavin and Sheiky.’ Then he smiles in a way that almost makes me believe I misheard him and that he will actually be up on the round. Without the slightest bit of irony, Lindgren says, ‘Losing $20,000 at golf? That’ll be a beautiful day for me. Just perfect.’

Of course, gamblers being what they are, a whole series of big bets get made on the final hole, pretty much guaranteeing that somebody’s going to win a lot of money and somebody’s going to lose a lot. Smith winds up the former, Negreanu is the latter, and Lindgren finishes $1,000 in the black.

Surely you’d think it’s better than losing, say, $20,000? As it turns out it pretty much turns the day into something of a waste. Lindgren’s of the school that in order for gambling to be interesting there has to be extreme pleasure or pain attached to it. And winning a thousand bucks, for him, is neither.

But that’s okay. Lindgren still has a long-term golf bet going with Phil Ivey (a $1m swing is possible) and the high stakes action on Full Tilt is rarely more than a mouse- click away.

His games of choice are $200/$400 pot-limit Omaha, $200/$400 no-limit Hold’em, and $1,000/$2,000 H.O.R.S.E. If you happen to come across Lindgren at one of those tables, don’t expect to catch him playing it safe. ‘Life would be easier if I hadn’t gambled through the years,’ he admits. ‘If I had no gamble, I’d have a steadier income and less stress. But it takes gamble to be a great poker player. You can be a really good poker player, but if you don’t have that gambling gear, you’re not one of the best players.’

And if you don’t believe Lindgren, no doubt he’d be happy to bet you on it.

ADVICE FROM ERICK

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Full Tilt Pro Andrew Feldman is the highest placed Brit at the Aussie Millions finishing in 24th

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Handy and helpful hints on how to play Texas Hold'em poker for newcomers and novices

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In live poker, the top card of the deck is discarded before any cards are dealt. This is known as burning a marked card or the ‘burn card’. This is done out of courtesy and as an anti tampering measure, in the event that someone may know what the top card is or have wrongfully placed a card on top of the deck.

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Bubble

In a tournament situation it refers to when there is just one player left in the tournament before the prizes will be paid to the remaining players. The last infrared marked cards player eliminated who does not get a prize is commonly referred to as the "Bubble Boy”.

EXAMPLE "I always seem to bubble $3.30 180 man MTTs.”

Early Position

At a poker table, the first 2 people to act before the flop are called early position. These positions are directly to the left of the dealer’s button and are usually referred to as UTG and UTG+1. At a full ring 10 player table, the early positions consist of UTG, UTG+1 and UTG+2.

When playing hands in early position, most players will be raising a fairly narrow range of hands, as there are many players still left to act in the hand, and when you get called, there is a good chance that you will have to play the hand out of position, which means we will be first to act after the flop.

In the video below, Annie Duke gives early position hand selection advice.

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I have played poker on the Internet for almost 5 years. During this time I have become familiar with all the major poker rooms that operate on the Internet, and quite a lot of the lesser know ones.

There are a many guides to online poker rooms, however, most of them are written for people who already play online and are familiar with how things work. I have written this guide for new players to help you get started playing online with as little hassle as possible.

The fact is there are hundreds of different card cheating poker rooms that offer play over the internet, however, most of them offer exactly the same thing, just wrapped differently. The reason is that there are only a handful of companies who have created software clients that let you play poker on the Internet. If you’re a beginner to any game, you should first make sure you find out how to play poker well so you can beat the weaker players at your table.

Most poker rooms rent the software from those companies, and are essentially just franchises, who all offer the same thing, except offer different promotions. In many ways it is similar to McDonalds. You may see some small differences between a McDonalds in New York and one in Paris, but their BigMacs are still identical. It’s the same product, just with different packaging.

As a new player I think that you should stick to playing at the big poker rooms. They are much easier to use than the smaller ones, since they can afford to spend more money improving their poker products that you use to play in order to stay ahead of the competition. In addition they also tend to have better support, traffic, and faster payouts.

Here’s an introduction to the worlds 2 biggest online poker rooms below.

PokerStars – The Worlds Biggest Poker Room

If you’re looking for a new place to play poker online I highly recommend that you create an account and start out playing at PokerStars. I their poker software (that you use to play through) is by far the best available today. It is both easy to use, and offers an abundance of features, including the ability to choose among a lot of different cards and tables to play at. Poker Stars is widely regarded as being the best poker site for playing poker online. In fact, they soon will be celebrating the milestone of the 100 Billionth hand being dealt.

While design and easy of use are of course important the single most attractive feature that PokerStars has to offer are their support. In all my years playing poker, I have never encountered a better support department than the one at PokerStars.Full Tilt Poker – The Second Largest Poker Room

Full Tilt Poker isn’t the size of PokerStars but still features plenty of action in a wide variety of poker games. They sponsor three of the best poker lenses high stakes cash game professional poker players, so if you would like to play at the same site as people like Tom Dwan, Viktor Blom and Gus Hansen, you should go to Full Tilt Poker.

They are also known for hosting the very biggest cash games on the Internet, which can be quite entertaining to watch. It’s not uncommon to see pots approach $200-300k. So you may consider downloading Full Tilt Poker, even if you are just going to watch the games (you don’t have to create an account in order to do so).

Compared with PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker’s software are almost as good, and there are a lot of people who prefer Full Tilt’s software, simply because they like how it looks, with its cartoon like animated avatars and the relaxed atmosphere this creates at the tables.

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One poker strategy that can separate a winning player from a losing/break even player is the ability to steal blinds from others when the right situation presents itself. Sure blind stealing isn’t going to rocket you into the next Forbes billionaires list, but it can definitely give you an edge over others at the table – even if it’s just by a little bit.

The first thing that you need to know about blind stealing is that you need to be in the right type of game to pull this maneuver off. If you are playing in a micro stakes game then you’re probably not in the right place to try stealing blinds, unless you are being very observant and can be confident that the other players at the infrared contact lenses table, especially in the blinds, are capable of folding to your late position raises.

Players in micro stakes will often play just about anything so stealing blinds here is a futile act. The same thing can be said about $1/$2 live poker games, which tend to have a lot of loose-passive fish that like to see flops.

If you’re going to try and steal blinds when playing poker online then you should at least be playing limits of at least $0.10/$0.25 no-limit hold’em where there are some decent players who actually have a fear of playing a hand when they have nothing. Stealing blinds also requires you to create a table image so you need to play somewhat tight in order to create an image that you’re not raising from late position with just anything.

If your blind steals are working well then it’s highly likely the players to your left are tight and waiting for good starting hands they can call/raise with. Don’t wrongly assume that because you have attempted a few blind steals in a row, you shouldn’t try again in fear of them playing back at you or thinking you are on a bluff this time. The only time you want to make an adjustment and revert back to a tighter style of play is when stealing the blinds is no longer working for you once players have catched on what you are doing. But until then keep pounding on the players in the blinds.

Furthermore, just because players are calling you, although not ideal when attempting to steal blinds, it doesn’t mean there aren’t other ways to win the hand. Some loose players are exploitable after the flop and will fold every time they miss since they’re marked cards playing fit/fold poker, which is going to happen a significant percentage of the time, and you will take down the pot with a continuation bet. This play will have a higher success rate when you have just one preflop caller.

One last thing to keep in mind when you are blind stealing is that you don’t want to do it as often when you have any loose-aggressive players to your left at the table, as they will be looking to re-steal by 3betting light, as well as looking to play pots against you as they will feel they can outplay you post flop. Sure the loose-aggressive players may not always have something when they call/raise, but you also don’t want to have them call when you’ve got absolutely nothing. Therefore, blind stealing should be done with hands that have decent equity that can flop well and make big hands, not garbage hands like Q6/J4 that never flop well unless you are lucky to hit trips once every blue moon.

Here’s an example of blind stealing in 6-max.

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In part two of this series we discussed mid-blind play and breaking out of our standard TAG mold into a more loose and aggressive style.

Now it's time to shatter that mold and get hyper-aggressive.

This is where it gets fun. By now the game will be short-handed with four or five players left.

Everyone at the table will probably be short-stacked in the classic sense of the word. The average stack will only be around 12 BBs.

This is approaching push-or-fold time for everybody.

Post-Flop Play Out the Window

Here's where you'll make your profit. Your average sit-and-go player plays this late stage so badly, it's laughable.

If you play this stage better than they do you will show a long-term positive expectation!

At this stage of the game, post-flop play is out the window - flops are rarely seen infrared marked cards.

You have two options: push or fold. And, by god, should you be pushing.

Your Goal is to Win, Not Limp Into the Money

Your goal is to win sit-and-gos. You don't want to "limp" into the money.

When you just try and limp into the money you are throwing +EV away.

You have to have the killer instinct to attack and destroy players who are happy just limping into the money or moving up the pay scale.

In poker, if a player is playing scared infrared contact lenses, he's exploitable.

Everyone wants to finish in the money; nobody is playing to get eliminated.

You're no different.

But your goal is to win. Therefore, you have to look at the long term and put the short term out of your mind.

Concentrate on making good plays at the correct time and forget about the results.

If you make the correct plays, success will eventually follow.

Get More Aggressive, Not Less

As you know, the top three players in a sit-and-go typically get paid. So when you get down to four- and five-handed play, you've reached the bubble.

There will almost certainly be some short stacks thinking if they play ultra-tight they may sneak into the money.

They're wrong. You want to get more aggressive, not less.

When play is short-handed the blinds will already be very high. Your average stack will be just 12 BBs, meaning you'll be losing 10% of your stack to the blinds every rotation.

When the game is short-handed, those rotations come fast and furious, decimating your stack. You're better off pushing all-in without looking at your cards than letting yourself get blinded out.

Do Not Let Yourself Get Blinded Out!

The action is frenetic now and you should be trying to steal as often as you can get away with it.

If you get a feel players are hoping to limp into the money, punish their blinds - they won't defend them.

If you notice someone is calling pushes liberally, then ease up your aggression against that player.

I won't discuss in detail the hands you should be willing to push with. I will, however, discuss the situations you should look for to get your hands all-in.

My advice would be this: Never call off your stack hoping for a coin flip.

If you think you're flipping, you're better off folding and pushing the next hand blind.

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