In the exhilarating world of poker, success is an elusive prize that can only be claimed by those who master the art of the game. To help you sharpen your poker skills and elevate your results to new heights, we've turned to none other than Alexandre "Cavalito" Mantovani, a distinguished ambassador of 888poker.
With years of experience and a formidable track record in the poker arena, Mantovani is set to reveal the five indispensable tricks that can transform your poker prowess.
Preflop Play
The only time in poker you have to make a decision 100% of the time is preflop. Some decisions are automatic, like raising pocket aces or folding seven-deuce off, for example. Preflop is a very underrated area, and you're going to see very experienced players making mistakes preflop.
You'll be amazed at the difference a solid preflop strategy will make to your game. It's going to net you even bigger stacks and give you deeper runs than you are used to. Study opening ranges for different positions at the table for small, medium and deep stacks.
Poker becomes a much easier game to play with solid starting hands, and it's a key fundamental to the game.
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Playing Single-Raised Pots from the Big Blind
One of the most common decision-making situations in poker is when you are the big blind, and there has been a raise.
If you fold everything but your strong hands, you'll become a target for all the players looking to take your blinds. This can be tricky because you need to defend yourself and play aggressively with a wide range of hands.
Playing out of position with less than premium hands is not something you want to do without understanding how. This situation can have one of the biggest impacts on your win rate, so give the topic serious attention.
Playing Single Raised Pots as the Preflop Aggressor
It's very common in poker to raise preflop, get called and then have to decide what to do after the flop - if you should bet or not, what bet sizing should you pick on different board textures, for example.
The advice for this scenario is that it's better to play a simple strategy that you're able to execute well 90% of the time than learning a complex strategy you can only execute well 70% of the time.
When you’re playing higher Stakes, of course, you have to be thorough, but at smaller stakes, if you learn a good, solid basic strategy for different flop textures, it's going to have a very good impact on your game and take some pressure off your decisions.
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Bounty Tournament Adjustments
Bounty tournaments are very popular and fun these days. With how the prize pool is structured and so much value being in bounties, you can't play these like any other poker tournament.
A lot of adjustments need to be made in order to maximize your profits. The best way to make them is to understand how the different bounty structures should impact your strategies.
Recognize that different structures need different strategies and practice them until they become more instinctive. Poker is not one size fits all.
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ICM Considerations
These three letters are very popular. ICM, or Independent Chip Model, is about how we adjust our strategies when different prizes are at play.
If you play tournaments, you must understand how ICM works and how your strategy should change when you're facing big pay jumps.
When at different stack sizes, you need to have very different strategies, and you need to be aware of these and be well-versed in how to adjust as your stack goes up and down.
When this topic became popular, a lot of people thought that it was just play aggressively as the big stack and play conservatively as a short stack. There are way more layers to this, and it just couldn't be explained in a short video, but it's well worth taking your time to study ICM.
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Calum has been a part of the PokerNews team since September 2021 after working in the UK energy sector. He played his first hand of poker in 2017 and immediately fell in love with the game. Calum's proudest poker achievement is winning the only tournament he has ever played in Las Vegas, the prestigious $60 Flamingo evening event.
