eight-handed game |Poker Strategy|

For example, in an eight-handed game, a pair of aces is likely to be the best hand going in, and the best hand going in is mathematically likely to be the best in the showdown. If you hold aces or better, you have to open even if you sacrifice some position by doing so, because you must get your full share of the $4 pots that start off every deal. There are two reasons why this is forced upon you. The cost per round will eat you up otherwise, and the low limit prevents your being badly hurt even when someone has a better hand or draws out on you.

At the opposite side of the problem is the typical stud poker game. Here there is almost never an ante, so there is no overhead. You can afford to "play them very close," waiting for the best hand at the table before you bet at all. Assuming that you do not suffer socially, you can sit for an hour without ever playing except when you are high and must make the first bet.

In a table-stakes game, when the bets are usually low but can rise to extremely high levels, you have a choice of tactics. It is in such games that players who wait for a killing are the ones who flourish.

The basis of money-management is to avoid the occasional cases in which you are tempted to toss in a chip or two to see what will happen-on a hunch, or because you are bored, or because you just won a big pot. If a bet is unsound it figures to lose, and in the course of a long session you can throw away an appalling amount of money in these occasional lapses. Self-discipline is important to a poker player.