So I'm going to play poker tomorrow night with a psychiatrist from work and his buddies.
I haven't played much with real people, only once.
If anyone has any advice that would be sweet, I'm intimidated.
I'm afraid the psychiatrist will be able to read me like a book. He's like Dr Spock.
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I'm going to assume you're pretty new and assume it's holdem. Only play good hands in early position (pairs, AK, AQ, suited connectors). Rasie to 3 times the big blind most of the time, and call some of the time. If it is folded to you in later position, you can raise with hands of lesser strength, because the added advantage of your good position counterbalances the poor strength of your hand. Try to avoid putting a lot of money in with "reverse-implied odds hands" such as Ax (which refers to any card with an ance, usually below queen, as they are vulnerable to making second best hands often) and KJ. If you're in position against only one opponent and he checks the flop to you, you should bet 1/2 to 3/4 of the pot every single time. I could explain this in detail but the general theory is he will only hit a pair roughly 33% of flops, so your bet will take it the majority of the time. If you get called, you can be almost certain he has at least a pair, usually some kind of drawing hand (to a flush or straight). Proceed with caution. The only real bluffing you should do is the continuation bet (the name for what I described in the previous paragraph) and raising with weakish hands preflop when it's been folded to you on the dealer or close to it. Those multi-street bluffs that you see on TV are not necessary to win a tournament and are only effective against good players. I would also look up a simple poker odds calculator. It's good to know the standard ones. For example, if you flop an open ended straight draw or a four flush, you have roughly a 2:1 chance of making your hand. So if someone bets the pot or less and you think you will be sticking around to the river, you have a mathematically justified call. Observe your opponents behavior when they have certain hands. You can pick up on physical tells and betting patterns this way. I am assuming your opponents aren't going to be much better than you, so you should have at least a slight advantage with these instructions. Hope that helped. [Edited on 10.05.2012 10:40 PM PDT]