How to Decide Which Type of Poker Game to Specialize In

In my last column, I concluded with a very brief guide to choosing the best type of poker game to play in based on your strengths and weaknesses as a poker player. In this column, I'd like to go into more detail, so I have listed important attributes for poker players, and how you should adjust your game selection based on your strengths and weaknesses.



Patience regarding hand selection while maintaining ability to focus - Players who are strong in this area, meaning they are capable of playing very tight for long periods of time without losing their focus, are well-suited to play in full games, both online and live. In my experience, live full games require significantly more patience than online games, because you get far fewer hands per hour than online, and you also do not have the option of playing multiple tables if you start getting bored. Note that if this is a weakness of yours, I recommend sticking to shorthanded or heads-up games. I would especially avoid ring games of Omaha eight-or-better if this is a weakness of yours, since this game requires waiting for premium starting hands, but you will be dealt many hands that you will be tempted to play that are trap hands and will likely cost you a lot of money in the long run. Live ring games of Omaha and triple-draw are also extremely slow, so the small number of hands you will see per hour relative to a hold'em game will surely test your patience. These days, I just don't have the patience to play much live poker outside of big tournaments, and when I do so, I play only hold'em, as the other games are so slow that I find them unbearable after playing them online, where they are much faster.



Aggressiveness - It's vital to be capable of being aggressive, regardless of what game you play. Virtually no consistent winning player would be considered passive. The closest thing to a winning player who would be least aggressive is a ring-game no-limit hold'em specialist who plays in very juicy games and peddles just the nuts (this strategy can also work great in limit and no-limit ring games of Omaha eight-or-better). Players who are overly aggressive will find that shorthanded play or even heads-up play will suit them far better than full games, because if you're going to make errors in shorthanded play, you generally want to err on the side of aggressiveness. Most hyperaggressive players will generally want to play online, as it has a vastly better selection of shorthanded and heads-up games than any brick-and-mortar casino.



Propensity to go on tilt - In general, if you are prone to go on tilt, you should play in full games, as I have found that it's much easier to go on tilt when playing shorthanded or heads up, and that can be much more devastating to your bankroll. Some people find that when playing online, they are prone to go on tilt, whereas in live games, they rarely go on tilt. If you are one of these players who goes on tilt easily online, try to stick to playing live poker. I also have noticed that a small percentage of players, usually younger ones who learned to play online, go on tilt much more in live games than when they play online. I think this is a result of boredom, since live play is so much slower than online play, and also that getting outdrawn live can be so much more emotionally painful than getting outdrawn online. Oftentimes when I am playing online and take a horrific beat in a huge pot, I don't even flinch. However, I can remember with great clarity several awful beats I have taken live, in which the pain of being outdrawn in a humongous pot was so crippling that I went on complete tilt and played every hand to try to win back the monster pot right away. I felt that I was entitled to get as lucky as my opponent(s) just did, but that is rarely how these scenarios turn out. Usually, I ended up digging myself into such a hole that I finally just quit and took the rest of the day off to regroup.



Value-betting the river - This trait is extremely important no matter what game you are playing, but if it's not one of your strong traits, stick to ring games.



Ability to lay down big hands - Do not play no-limit hold'em if you cannot lay down a big hand. Also, you should avoid Omaha eight-or-better, because you'll make the second nuts quite often, and the second nuts in that game usually ends up costing you a lot of money.



Ability to change gears - This means that you have the ability to mix up your play drastically to keep your opponents confused and make yourself difficult to read. This is a vital skill in heads-up play, and a fairly important one in shorthanded games, especially when you are playing with the same group of people for a long period of time. It is also very important in live play, as your opponents will expend much more effort trying to read you in live play than online, and you want to make it as difficult as possible for them to read you correctly. If you are not comfortable with changing gears, you should stick to playing ring games online, as most of these games can be crushed with a traditional tight-aggressive approach in which you hardly ever bluff (although you will still need to semibluff and bet draws for value).

Note that live tournaments require all of these skills to be truly successful, and they generally have much higher variance than side games of comparable limits. I do not recommend playing big buy-in tournaments – that is, four- and five-digit buy-in events – until you feel relatively strong in all of these areas. In tournaments, there will be times when you'll need to be able to play very tight and patient poker, especially when short-stacked; at other times, you'll want to raise liberally with a large chip stack, to push the smaller chip stacks around.



This list of attributes is by no means complete, but I do think I have hit on the major ones. Be very honest with yourself when analyzing your own strengths and weaknesses, and if you can use this guide to pick the types of poker games that are most suitable for you, I guarantee your bankroll will thank you for it.

Thomas "Thunder" Keller is a 25-year-old professional poker player and one of poker's young and rising stars. He can often be found playing at UltimateBet.com under the name thunderkeller. To learn more about him and to enlist in his new poker squadron, go to his website at http://www.thunderkeller.com/. Also, feel free to contact him at thomas@thunderkeller.com.