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A tip from Eric “basebaldy” Baldwin

Eric “basebaldy” Baldwin came out of the gates strong last year, 2009 and is holding up well this year as well. He won his first bracelet in during the ’09 World Series of Poker by placing first in a $1,500 buy-in no-limit hold’em event, Baldwin also placed third in the $10,000 World Championship pot-limit hold’em event. He has amassed 2.6 million in a very short span of time.
He has become a guru of sorts at playing short hand, all the way down to heads up. Taking a look at Baldwin’s three-handed tournament strategy is a good start for both pro and amateur players.
Let’s take a look shall we?
Know who your opponents are. Let’s say they are of the aggressive type both in the blinds and in their style of re-raising.  Baldwin recommends to “tighten up” your raising range.
Meaning?
Depending on the situation you should only open if you are willing to go all the way with the hand pre-flop. It can be frustrating to pick up small pairs and suited connectors here; you don’t really want to get them all-in pre-flop, but your opponents are going to make it difficult to see a flop.
Well what about limping you may ask?
Baldwin, will on occasion, toss in a limp with these hands if his opponents have too much to shove. Now, if the other players finish the small blind and/or check the big blind, the recommend action is to see a flop with a good hand in position. If the other card players raise, than you as a player can call – anticipating that they will bet most flops, gives you the opportunity to semi-bluff. If you flop something you have a chance to take a good full pot.
A final word of advice …
When you are measuring your opponents, be careful to recognize that they are also sizing you up. When you do limp, you should do so on huge hands in order to hide your range.
Take the free advise – Good luck!

It’s a rare case in today’s tournaments that I’d get three handed with two tight players. If I did, I would obviously be quite aggressive from the button, and be cautious if my opponents showed resistance.
OK, what about the small blind? Do you use some of the same principles for knowing when to raise into the big blind as you do when considering a raise on the button?
From the small blind I’m looking at what has happened in previous small blind versus big blind confrontations with this player. If I raised and got reraised last time, I’m very likely to raise again with most hands. This is because I expect him to think, “He knows I’m likely to reraise him here, and he’s opening anyway,” and just give up most hands.
If I’ve been raising and taking down most pots and the player appears aggravated, I’m not raising very often at all until I pick up a good hand or I rebuild my image a bit. I really just ask myself, “How is this player likely to respond?” to each possible action. I do this before looking at my cards and act accordingly.


What spots are you looking to reraise from the small blind against a button raise, either as a resteal or for value?
I’m paying attention to how often this player has been raising their button. The more often they raise, the wider my range is to reraise on a resteal. Stack sizes are important here. If my opponent has a lot of chips, I need to be aware that my opponent might four-bet on a resteal or call my reraise. If I think there is a decent chance of my reraise getting called, I want to have a decent hand to go to the flop with.
Now onto the big blind. How do you approach this position?
If the button raises and the small blind folds, play is very similar to play from the small blind. One difference is I’m slightly more likely to call preflop, given the improved pot odds and knowledge that there is nobody behind me that can raise me off the hand. If the button folds, I’m back to examining previous small blind versus big blind confrontations against the small blind.
If he’s been pretty weak with his small blind and comes in for a raise, I’m going to give him more credit than if he’s opening most of the time. If he’s really aggressive from the small blind, I need to mix in some resteals and calls more often. Three handed, most of the time, nobody is going to have that strong of a hand.
You can’t sit around and wait to make big hands and expect to win. Finding ways to win pots without much of a hand is essential.
Do you think it’s possible to overexploit profitable plays from each of these positions?
It’s definitely possible to overdo it with plays. This is where it’s important to keep mixing up your play. If I’ve been stealing a lot and now all of the sudden I’m getting played back at, I need to adjust. The really good Texas hold’em players can tell when they are about to get played back at. That’s a much cheaper way to adjust your play than waiting for someone to actually reraise you.
So from any position, what are the biggest mistakes you see players making when it gets down to three-handed?
The biggest mistake I see is people relying too much on having or making a big hand.
Is there any other advice you would give to beginning players?
My best advice would be to assess the situation before worrying about your cards. Most of the time you can pretty accurately figure out what’s going to happen before it does. Playing off these situation reads can be more important than the cards you’re holding.
Later on this week, Baldwin will discuss how these concepts apply to an actual hand he played while three-handed for his WSOP bracelet this summer.

Written by texas holdem Team · Filed Under players 

Daniel Negreanu

I am the greatest poker player of all time – Take one.
Who is the best poker player in the world? Well it depends who you ask. Obviously, one of the most famous players is Doyle Brunson. However, there are a fair amount of top ranking players which give him a real run for his money.
One of them is Canadian pro Daniel Negreanu, 36, He has four World Series of Poker bracelets and two World Poker Tour Championships. His overall ranking brings him second, all time, in career earnings, trailing only Phil Ivey.
A high school drop out, Negreanu began to play and hustle cards at 15. Once he earned enough funds, and enough courage, he counted his money and headed to Las Vegas. He was 22 and ambitious – he left Vegas shortly after to restack his funds in his home town.
His “luck” began at Foxwoods Casino in Connecticut. He was named best player and went home with $55,064. Next began his roll through the World Series of Poker in 1998; winning $169,460 at the $2,000 Pot Limit Hold’em World Series of Poker - he was crowned the youngest WSOP bracelet winner in history.
This break jump-started his over all standing in the poker world and over the next several years his success carried him through other WPT tournaments where won the coveted WPT bracelet three separate times. He was named World Series of Poker player of the year in ‘04 and World Poker Tour player of the year in ‘05.
A good portion of Negreanu’s drive and accomplishment has is associated with his unique intuition. This feature in his play style leaves opponents stunned by his ability to read them blind. Negreanu has declared one of the most crucial aspects in his game is analyzing and observing what hands the challenger plays and how he/she fairs off when they do commit to playing their hand.
Daniel Negreanu book Power Hold’em Strategy hold a wealth of knowledge and is recommend to all who are interested in learning more about poker from one of the greats. It holds sections and short contributions from other starts such as Evelyn Ng, Erick Lindgren, Paul Wasicka, Todd Brunson and David Williams.
His estimated earnings, as of 2010 are approximately $12,000,000 - second all time.

Written by texas holdem Team · Filed Under players 

Tom Dwan profile

A nice boy from Jersey

Tom Dwan is known not only for his natural instinctive skills in the online poker world, but he is also one of the youngest poker stars today.
Starting his six figure career, he began to play $6 “sit and go” tournaments and then moved in the direction of low stakes cash games. Dwan switched his style to “heads-up” No Limit hold ‘em and began to challenge certain pro players. At age 19 Dwan finished 12th in a no limit Texas hold ‘em match during the second season of the European Poker Tour.
By 2007 Dwan was earning six figure wins on Full Tilt and according to HighStakekesDB.com climbed quickly to reach the multi-million mark by 2008. Dwan said that, shortly before the 2007 World Series of Poker, that he was wiped out of his million dollar bank roll – loosing two million dollars of his three million dollars over four months, ouch!
Dwan’s resurgence was stumped in January 2009 when he was struck by his greatest defeat. Loosing nearly two million dollars to Phil Ivey, and IIari Sahamies, and a whopping five million to an unranked player, Dwan continued to perceiver to reclaim his young name.
In the same month, Dwan was offered $1,000,000 to challenge any player online, outside Phil Galfond of course, to a heads up 50,000 hands $200-$400 or higher No Limit Hold em’ or Pot Limit Omaha. As of March 2010, Dwan and his challenger, Patrick Antonious, have played over 33,000 of the 50,000 hands. The leader is Dwan at approx two million dollars.
Dwan reached the final 10,000 table at the 2008 World Series of Poker and finished in 8th place. He captured $54,144. On the heels of this impressive placement he went onwards and finished 8th again in a seven person final table where he earned 45,110.
Tom Dwan is considered a cool, calculated player that understands the essence of developing a flexible poker strategy.

Written by texas holdem Team · Filed Under players 

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