PokerStrategy

1 month ago | pokerstrategy.com | Dara O'Kearney

We are all the fish in some games but Dara O'Kearney has a few tips on how to reduce your disadvantage. One of the proudest achievements in my career has been all the people who have gotten to play in large "bucket list" tournaments thanks to my satellite book. This often means, however, that those players are going to be minus EV in the tournament itself. Nothing wrong with that, they might get lucky, use it as a springboard to learn or at least have an amazing experience.

1 month ago | pokerstrategy.com | Dara O'Kearney

Dara O'Kearney lays out a strategy for making reads on large groups of players (and when to avoid doing so). Population tendencies refer to the common leaks that are reliably present in a large group of players. It may be that NL100 players and under do not check/raise enough, or that PokerStars players are too aggressive, or American live players are too sticky. Perhaps the most important consideration regarding population tendencies is that they do change over time.

1 month ago | pokerstrategy.com | Dara O'Kearney

Dara O'Kearney has the cheat sheet for how to play after the flop when you can win a bounty. Despite being early birds with PKO, ICM and post flop ICM content, Barry and I have only never really done much on the topic of post flop PKO strategy. Here is the two-minute elevator pitch for how to play post flop pots when you can win a bounty. The big surprise is that your post flop continue range does not widen considerably. You continue with the same holdings that continue in a non-PKO hand.

1 month ago | pokerstrategy.com | Dara O'Kearney

Fix your leaks and your game will come on in leaps and bounds - here is Dara O'Kearney's advice on knowing what is holding you back. It's a great idea in this game to always know what your leaks are. If you know the problem, you can work towards getting it fixed. Structuring your learning around leak fixing is a very organic way to learn, it's rewarding because your leaks cause you pain and poker is a game of making the fewest mistakes, so it usually improves your winrate the most.

1 month ago | pokerstrategy.com | Dara O'Kearney

Dara O'Kearney shares how to come to terms with a game where everyone loses more than they win. The hardest part of poker is undeniably downswings. You can do everything right and still lose in this game. Tournaments are even tougher than cash games in this respect. In tournaments, most players have twice as many losing days as they do winning days. The opposite is true in cash games. We are, essentially, (almost) always on a downswing.