Making a commitment to study poker seems silly to some people.

In fact, I am sure you’ve often heard it from friends, co-workers, and family members: “Poker is gambling and at the end of the day, you need to be lucky to win at gambling”.

The next time you hear this all too familiar refrain, show them to this tweet from LearnWPT Instructor Tony Dunst...

However, shaping yourself into an elite and skilled poker player requires you to be open to learning, to be eager to improve, and to be dedicated to staying on the top of your game.

Tony Dunst, LearnWPT Instructor, WPT commentator, WPT Champion, 2x WSOP Bracelet Winner, and WSOP Circuit Ring winner, with more than $4 Million in live poker tournament winnings, is here to provide you with exclusive access to winning cash game and poker tournament strategies, detailed poker hand analysis and how to think through every street, GTO play, adjusting for known opponent tendencies, and what it takes to play On Tour.

There's no denying Tony’s resume as a world-class player, and he’s dedicated to improvement through his own study and collaboration with close friend and fellow LearnWPT Instructor Andrew “LuckyChewy” Lichtenberger.

So, you should take this world-class player’s example and start your study plan today with a $5 first month membership to LearnWPT.com.

In his video Strategy Episodes, Tony focuses on:

➧ Key aspects of playing better poker including betting decisions under ICM pressure

➧ Advanced strategies that professional poker players use to adjust when big money is on the line

➧ Maintaining focus to be ready to play your A-game in crucial times

➧ How to target common leaks in your opponents

➧ Key study techniques Pros use to keep at the top of the game

➧ Optimal strategies for playing postflop after 3-betting preflop

➧ Answering questions from LearnWPT members

Get unfettered access to hear Tony review hands and outline his approach to staying mentally and physically fit for poker, reveal his top 10 player notes he takes during sessions, compare the mindset of a professional poker player vs a recreational player and provide key adjustments for transitioning from making deep runs to winning tournaments.

To give you some extra motivation and show you how dedication to study helped Tony have one of his best years ever as a Pro, you'll get exclusive access to Tony’s Strategy Episodes (48 videos!) as part of your $5 First Month Membership to LearnWPT.com.

Join today and get started on proving all the doubters wrong and get on a path to constant improvement (like Tony did!).

As part of your $5 First month membership, you’ll get access to a Strategy Episode where Tony discusses 4 recent hands he played from a $1000 buy-in online final table.

Watch this Episode To Learn Critical Strategies For:
➧ 3-betting with pocket jacks when ICM Is in play
➧ Continuation bet sizing to target specific stacks
➧ Knowing when to get away from your hand vs a turn lead
➧ How to react when your opponent leads on the river

In another episode, Tony focuses on physical fitness and how it can affect your poker performance, providing you with tips on how to use a healthy lifestyle to increase performance and stamina.

Being attentive to the energy consumed vs. energy expended, employing daily caloric calculators, and learning how to play your best depending on your diet are just some of the things that Tony touches upon in this episode. As physical fitness is essential for prolonged focus during sessions full of long hours, it is important to use increased focus to your advantage and to stay present and avoid auto piloting. You should also choose a key phrase to help you stay mindful and reset your state after losing a big pot, and use mental fitness to equip you with better mistake recognition strategies.

Follow Tony’s example and start your study plan today with a $5 first Month Membership to LearnWPT.com. You'll get exclusive access to Tony’s library of Strategy Episodes (48 videos) as part of your $5 First Month Membership to LearnWPT.com.

It'll be the best $5 investment you can make to get on the road to poker success!

Study hard and play well,
-LearnWPT

Poker legend and LearnWPT Instructor Andrew "LuckyChewy" Lichtenberger used his steady and mindful poker approach to become a $100,000 buy-in WPT Alpha 8 Champion, WSOP Bracelet winner, and secure more than $11 Million in live poker tournament earnings.

He doesn't compare himself or his progress to anyone else's, but rather works on strengthening his own poker skills. Due to his dedication to learning and improvement LuckyChewy has been an innovative catalyst for new poker strategies throughout his entire career. By adopting a meditative attitude he is able to execute optimal strategies under tremendous pressure, providing a key balance for his analytical and collaborative approach to learning and playing poker.

LuckyChewy's opponent in this hand was another legend, Daniel Negreanu, one of the most influential and successful poker players worldwide as well as a favorite of poker fans with his distinctive and fun personality. Having played poker since he was a teenager, testing his skills and moving up in levels while plugging leaks and studying the game, he eventually became the youngest player to win a WSOP Bracelet at 23 years old, eventually winning 6 WSOP Bracelets. Daniel is no stranger to success on the World Poker Tour® as a 2 time WPT champion and WPT Season III Player of the Year, which helped him amass over $45 Million in tournament earnings.

As the subject of a LearnWPT Strategy Episode, LuckyChewy reviewed a hand he played against Daniel Negreanu in the $300,000 buy-in Super High Roller Bowl and explored some strategic ideas as a result of how this hand played out. LuckyChewy describes exactly what he was thinking after flopping a huge hand with millions of dollars at stake.

This video is part of our High Stakes with LuckyChewy Strategy Episode series where Chewy takes a deep dive into his most interesting and useful hands from real WPT and WSOP Final tables and teaches strategies and concepts you can use in your game.

In this ultra-high stakes tournament, LuckyChewy opened 2.5x the big blind, effectively risking what's in the pot with the blinds and antes. Daniel elected to 3-bet to 27,000, or 9 big blinds total. LuckyChewy had a fairly straightforward call with pocket fours and flopped a bottom set with a backdoor flush draw on the A♣9♣4♥ flop. With the in-position player having the range advantage, LuckyChewy checks and Daniel bets around one-quarter of the pot.

LuckyChewy decided to raise slightly more than 3 times his bet, knowing that Daniel is not likely to reraise him with anything because he already had the range advantage. With this stack depth, it's not recommended to play aggressively against LuckyChewy’s range, as he's quite polarized. There's not any reason for Daniel to raise, because if he has a strong value hand he prefers the opponent to keep bluffing or betting his weaker value hands. Daniel does call and the turn is a texture-changing card, the 2♣.

Based on the solver study, LuckyChewy initially thought this was a card that would encourage Daniel to slow down on, use smaller bet sizes to not bloat the pot. The solver actually recommends a larger bet of around 2/3 of the pot as you should push an equity advantage on a card that's better for you than it is for your opponent. However, if you bet a larger size, you would get way more folds than the solver prefers and your opponent is expected to fold hands as strong as AK.

The deeper you get into the game tree, the more assumptions you have to make about how your opponent would respond in order to determine the appropriate action based on the recommended strategy. The key in understanding the equilibrium approach to poker is to employ proven strategies, based on the program algorithm, to minimize the chance to lose.

LuckyChewy elected to use the smaller bet sizing and Daniel continued with a call. On the 8♠ river card Daniel shoved all-in. A shove from a hand such as A4s would be very perplexing and you're not likely to benefit from shoving with a hand like this as part of a balanced poker strategy. However this is one of those nuanced scenarios where the raise is mandatory, so you can reach equilibrium as the in-position player.

These are interesting conceptual ideas that do exist in a theoretical sense and familiarizing yourself with why these abstractions may occur through solver study is fascinating. If your opponent got here with pocket eights they would likely shove all-in. There may be some bluffing with pocket tens and jacks, so you would assume it would be more advantageous to bluff with stronger club blockers.

The simulation LuckyChewy used to analyze this hand would argue against that, as it's shoving all its flushes as the in-position player. Hands such as pocket tens and pocket kings where one of the cards is a club, as well as hands with AK with the K♣ or AQ with the Q♣, are considered bluff shoves from Daniel because it doesn't seem likely that LuckyChewy is bluffing. Considering the odds he was getting and the strength of his hand, LuckyChewy made the decision to call it off. Much to his dismay, Daniel did have K♣J♣ for the nut flush.

Although it was a painful hand to lose, LuckyChewy says through analyzing this hand with a solver post-game he realized how much better that turn was for him than it was for Daniel, regardless of the fact that they had a relatively equal distribution of suited hands that could make a club flush.

We hope that observing LuckyChewy's poker insights, strategies and concepts will be beneficial to you and boost your own game!

Click here to learn more about LuckyChewy, his accomplishments, and more importantly... how he can help improve your game.

Ready for more? Join LearnWPT for just $5 your first month of Membership and get full access to LuckyChewy content.

We'll see you online,
-LearnWPT

Why Use The WPT GTO Trainer Vs Other GTO Poker Strategy Trainers?

There have been many poker “trainers” in the past that allow you to play poker hands for practice. However, these have been powered by opinions of what is good play and are often based on a specific player’s experience. The poker strategy offered might not consider every factor that influences a poker hand when giving advice.

Unfortunately, human beings have only so much brainpower. These key strategic factors are often difficult to see without the help of cutting-edge technology, and they can make a big difference between a profitable and losing poker session. It’s practically impossible for one person to quickly and accurately tell you what will be the most profitable decision for your poker game in the long run.

Human poker players simply cannot give instant feedback on the correct strategy for every poker decision and show you how to correct mistakes instantly, without doing some serious in-depth analysis first (even poker legend Phil Ivey!).

It’s very unlikely that a human poker player will be able to make the correct decision for a high percentage of hands they play without some real work studying poker strategy off the table. In addition, most humans are not capable of providing poker strategy advice without favoring their own strengths and protecting their weaknesses.

How Does The WPT GTO Trainer Make It Easy For Anyone To Learn GTO Poker Strategy?

The WPT GTO Trainer allows you to study and learn true Nash equilibrium solutions solved for GTO poker strategy by simply playing poker hands in a user-friendly interface. Game Theory Optimal Poker Strategy is used by the best players in the world to dominate tournaments and cash games and now you can learn these cutting-edge strategies without doing all of the time-consuming research. You don’t need to test your poker strategy theory by trial and error, you just need to train poker GTO strategy with the WPT GTO Trainer.

This cutting-edge poker training tool looks just like a standard online poker game and makes learning GTO strategy simple. Choose a poker situation from your favorites including cash games, tournaments, small stakes cash games, 6-max poker, final table play including ICM adjusted ranges, and heads up play.

Train vital poker skills including continuation betting, big blind defense, button defense, 3-betting, 3-betting defense, and more. For each decision you make, get instant feedback on the precise EV (Expected Value) Loss of each play and see the Ideal Action as recommended by the GTO poker solver right on the screen.

As you play real poker hands solved using real poker GTO strategy your game will quickly be guided closer and closer to GTO play. Quickly review your play at a glance with the Session Summary and see where your leaks are immediately.

Compare your play to correct GTO poker strategy including 1-pair hands, flushes, straights, full houses, and even ace high showdowns. Get in-depth feedback and share hands from the Session Summary directly to the Ask A Pro Feature. With the click of a button, share the replay of the hand that gives you trouble directly to the LearnWPT Pros for expert GTO strategy guidance.

Watch this video for a detailed walkthrough of the WPT GTO Trainer features with LearnWPT Lead Instructor and 2x WSOP Bracelet Winner, Nick Binger!

How Many Flops Does The WPT GTO Trainer Solve For?

When evaluating whether a poker GTO strategy solution is accurate it’s essential to know how many flops the solution solves for. The most experienced GTO poker strategy teachers will solve for 1755 strategically significant flops which ultimately represent all of the 22,100 possible flop combinations in No-Limit Hold’em. Focusing on 1755 strategically significant flops allows for efficient solving of GTO poker strategy solutions and ensures the output will be highly useful in studying situations based on poker GTO strategy.

The most common poker scenarios you’ll face at the tables are solved for poker GTO strategy using exclusive cloud-distributed server technology and transformed into playable online poker hands in the WPT GTO Trainer. The GTO poker strategy solutions utilized by the WPT GTO Trainer are true Nash Equilibrium solutions, not guesstimates.

For every poker scenario, each of the 1755 strategically significant flops in no-limit hold’em are playable. Every spot has been solved to an exploitability of between 0.1% - 0.6% of the pot giving assurance the GTO poker strategy shown by the WPT GTO Trainer is highly accurate. In total, there are over 4 billion poker GTO strategy hands available to play in our database and counting.

How Many Bet Sizes Does The WPT GTO Trainer Use?

The WPT GTO Trainer utilizes a maximum of 3 different bet size options for you to choose from for any decision you are presented with. While GTO poker solvers have the ability to determine the correct strategies using several additional bet sizes, trying to build a GTO poker strategy using too many options is almost impossible in real life.

Using a maximum of 3 bet sizes for GTO poker strategy solutions allows you to train only the most relevant poker situations that you are likely to encounter in most games you play. By sticking to a maximum of 3 bet sizes the WPT GTO Trainer lets you practice key spots with the most realistic simulated responses from your opponent.

Each time you are presented with a decision in the WPT GTO Trainer you’ll learn to choose the correct bet sizing faster based on the real-time feedback you get from each decision. Soon your bet sizing decisions will trend closer and closer to real GTO strategy by simply playing poker hands. You won’t need to worry about setting up poker GTO solvers or having a game plan that is too complex.

Just make the best decision at the moment based on the poker situation you are presented with and learn as you play.

How Easy Is It To Use The WPT GTO Trainer?

If you’ve never worked with a GTO poker solver before, it can be really difficult to create the hand ranges for each player and know how each player's hand range interacts using GTO poker strategy. Solvers can be very intimidating to operate and require advanced GTO poker strategy expertise in order to make the correct assumptions.

Building correct hand ranges based on position, preflop action, and how opponents are likely to proceed involves a high level of experience and in-depth understanding of GTO poker strategy. In order for a GTO poker strategy solver to help your game, it’s essential you have the knowledge to determine the correct actions and incorporate them as part of a balanced game plan.

The WPT GTO Trainer removes this time-consuming and potentially error-filled step and gets you to the correct answer by recreating a GTO poker strategy simulation in a virtual gameplay environment. Simply choose a training pack scenario from the huge selection and start playing hands to learn and practice the GTO poker strategy.

The WPT GTO Trainer is laser-focused on plugging your leaks and training you for peak performance. Learn GTO poker strategy fast by choosing the specific situations that give you the most trouble at the table. Whether you need to practice continuation betting from in position vs out of position, brush up on postflop play after defending your big blind, or you want to drill 3-bet defense from a middle position facing raises from virtually any seat at the table, it’s just one click away.

Simply filter for the poker GTO strategy scenario you want to train today, click the play now button and you will automatically be presented with a flop and hole cards. Choose your action and bet amount for each street and get real-time feedback on your EV Loss, Played Percentage, and Ideal Action right on the screen after you make a decision.

At the end of each GTO poker strategy training session view your Session Summary dashboard to see your data displayed graphically for quick leak identification. Share the hands that generated the biggest EV Loss from your dashboard directly to Ask a Pro for expert feedback (hint, the results will be bright red).

Review your previous session before each day’s training to stay aware of your previous trouble spots and adjust your decisions closer to GTO strategy in real-time during your current training session. Use this cutting-edge poker training tool to practice anytime and anywhere from your favorite internet-connected device.

Check out how powerful this advanced GTO poker strategy training tool is and train with one of the best players in the game.

Play along with WPT Commentator, WPT Champion, 2x WSOP Bracelet Winner, and LearnWPT Instructor Tony Dunst and learn poker GTO Strategy in this free Strategy Episode.

....

Learn By Your Own Actions

Range charts, strategy tip sheets, and apps can be useful at the table however they also can be difficult to memorize and can often make the process of understanding GTO strategy more difficult.

GTO poker strategy involves many adjustments based on board texture and opponent actions, and trying to visualize these adjustments based on percentages listed in a chart can be almost impossible.

Learning GTO poker strategy involves adjustments based on board texture and opponent response, including randomizing decisions in certain spots.

There aren’t many players who are skilled enough to memorize all of the possible hand range charts and how they change based on GTO poker strategy in each situation, not to mention take that information to the table and use it in real-time.

The WPT GTO Trainer takes the classwork out of studying GTO strategy poker and forces you to learn by doing. You will develop the mental muscle memory for common No-Limit Hold’em poker scenarios and direct your study time toward the areas you need help with the most, by simply playing solved GTO poker strategy hands.

The WPT GTO Trainer is accessible from all your favorite internet-connected devices from the road or the comfort of home. It’s never been easier to train real GTO poker hands and learn GTO poker strategy thanks to LearnWPT and The World Poker Tour.

These Top 10 Online Poker Tells will help you identify opponents' tendencies at the table, learn how to adjust to certain poker player types, become more skilled at reading poker opponents, and exploit population tendencies in your poker game.

This list is created by Tony Dunst, WPT Commentator, LearnWPT Instructor, professional poker player, WPT Champion, 2x WSOP Bracelet, and 2x WSOP Circuit Ring winner. Tony recently did an in-depth hand history review of a tournament where he made a deep run featuring the Top 10 Online Poker Tells.

Check out his most common notes on opponents below:

► #1 Poker Tell: Opens Too Wide
► #2 Poker Tell: Straightforward in Big Spots
► #3 Poker Tell: Flat Calls Too Wide Preflop
► #4 Poker Tell: Passive Postflop with No Showdown Value
► #5 Poker Tell: Open Shoves Too Wide
► #6 Poker Tell: Flat Call or Small Reraise Instead of Shoving
► #7 Poker Tell: Reshoves Too Wide Preflop
► #8 Poker Tell: Calls Down Too Wide Postflop
► #9 Poker Tell: Bluffs Too Wide Postflop
► #10 Poker Tell: Not ICM Conscious

#1 Poker Tell: Opens Too Wide

This is a note that Tony takes most often, and it refers to catching your opponent's opening with too many hands, which is pretty common in MTTs and poker in general, but especially in poker tournaments since people have a stronger incentive to open wide.

With a solid grasp of what your own opening ranges are supposed to be, you can have a better understanding of what people should be opening. When you are in the early stages of a deep-stacked tournament, Tony suggests 3-betting wider ranges for value.

Opening too wide from an early position makes defending your range almost impossible!

The benefit of using a fairly linear range (i.e. mostly good hands with strong playability post-flop) allows you to systematically broaden your range and take advantage of a poker player opening too wide.

If you see an opponent opening too wide, which is often accompanied by them calling 3-bets too wide, the hands in your linear range for that position become automatic 3-bets.

With a player who opens too wide, you need to take all of the hands that mix calling and shoving and turn them into really profitable shoves.

For example, if the Cutoff opens and you have 25 big blinds in the small blind, Tony suggests to start mixing suited combinations of A9, K9,J9, T8, 98, and KJ offsuit as 3-bets, and flatting A2 and A3 suited against those who open too wide. This is a very simple and profitable adjustment to make against opponents with the tendency to open wider preflop.

#2 Poker Tell: Straightforward in Big Spots

The second most common note Tony takes on his opponents is particularly true at the low to mid-stakes online, and in live poker. This note means that in general, your opponent is going to be under bluffing, particularly when 3-btting, 4-betting, check-raising you on the flop, raising you on the turn, raising over your river bet, or big spots where they have to put in a large percentage of their stack.

This type of player can also be identified through how they talk about poker and hands at the table and are often observed as hesitant and skeptical with regard to both wasting chips and bluffing their stack away.

These opponents are simply way too straightforward in big spots, which provides you with a cheat code and an opportunity to fold everything unless you've got the goods. The counter adjustment is achieved by opening with a tighter range of hands against a player who is straightforward in big spots and folds all of your marginal opens to their 3-bets.

Tony suggests that in heads-up pots vs these kinds of players you can make an exploitative adjustment.

Against this specific player it is acceptable to flat call with pocket aces and allow them to take the lead postflop as they will likely be betting strong with hands they enter the pot with.

#3 Poker Tell: Flat Calls Too Wide Preflop

Tony sees this frequently with the low to medium midstakes players who tend to flat call with too many of the offsuit Ace and offsuit Broadway combinations.

Sometimes players flat pairs in spots where they are too short stacked to do so, so against this type of opponent you can bet wider against them as a bluff, because they often flat too many hands preflop that don't connect.

Consider this example: you're out of position, your opponent flats, you get a scattered flop and you're supposed to mix between betting and checking.

Against a player who's flatting too much wide preflop, you can start to make money by using a much more frequent small C-bet sizing.

Another strategy against opponents who flat too wide preflop is to barrel down (bet out on the flop, turn, and river) wider against them because it is tougher for them to get to turns and rivers with strong hands when their ranges broaden preflop to include many more random second pair or third pair combinations.

You can put a great deal of pressure on these kinds of players on the later streets because they get there with weaker ranges.

#4 Poker Tell: Passive Postflop with No Showdown Value

This is a tendency you see from players who are passive and don't realize that they are supposed to be bluffing fairly often when they have no showdown value.

This kind of player calls out of the big blind when you open in late position, and will continue vs a c-bet fairly often while holding a capped wide range when something favorable hits your range on the board, such as King-High or Ace-High.

When the river misses your hand and most of the plausible draws and your opponent has not shown aggression, you might start contemplating bluffing them off it.

Against these players, Tony suggests taking more showdowns with high card hands instead of trying to bluff them.

Here is an example to illustrate this concept further: You open a 87 Suited, you see that the flop is bad for your range, the turn and river is a brick, but you don't beat the draws and your opponent checks to you. Since now it's clear that this player is very passive with no showdown hands, they have gotten to this river and checked to you with more hands that don't really have showdown value. In this spot you should turn more of these types of hands into bluffs against the passive player type.

In addition, you should focus on being more passive with any hand that can showdown and win vs a player who takes a passive line postflop with hands that have no showdown value, and at the same time become more aggressive with the hands that you can absolutely never showdown.

#5 Poker Tell: Open Shoves Too Wide

This is a pretty common mistake amongst MTT players and many still have outdated ideas about shoving ranges.

For instance, if someone has 10 big blinds in the middle position, many players would assume any Ace is acceptable to shove all-in with preflop, and that's not actually the case.

With 10 big blinds in Middle Position 2 (MP2) you should mostly be folding A2 through A6, as well as hands including JT, QT and KT. If you spot players open shoving too wide in the 10-15 blind zone, it may fold to you in the Small or Big Blind, and you now have a significant advantage especially if you can identify the types of hands that they open or shove too wide with.

As another example, if you do see a wide opponent shove from an early position with 10 big blinds and it folds you in the big blind with A6, now you have a clear call. Against players who are shoving too tight, who jam 10 big blinds from an early position and you're in the Big Blind with a hand as weak as A6, there are a lot of players you should go ahead and make that fold against.

Having players at your table who open shove too wide is actually beneficial, as you will be able to make more money off of those players as they present you with opportunity to call getting good odds.

#6 Poker Tell: Flat Call or Small Reraise Instead of Shoving

Tony says he takes this note in tournaments 'all day long'.

Most players who make this mistake don't even realize that they are playing face up when they do it, and you will see this happen all the time in tournaments.

Here is a common scenario to help illustrate the concept: The player on the button has 18 to 22 big blinds and a stack that is mostly flatting or jamming, without any hands that 3-bet with a small sizing in their range. You're supposed to jam a lot of the pairs, the suited broadways, both strong offsuit aces and suited low aces including A5 suited, as well as a mix of the A4, A3 and A7 suited combinations.

As observed by Tony, many players jam a lot of these medium-strong hands and 3-bet small with only aces and kings, and they never balance that by 3-betting small with a hand like A9 offsuit for instance.

Another common example to illustrate this concept is a scenario where you open raise, and an opponent calls. You get the flop with top pair and continuation bet, they call, you barrel the turn intending to barrel down for value, and instead of calling, your opponent hits you with a min-raise on the turn.

Once you identify a player using these small raises when they should be shoving, it's safe to assume that they will not find the bluffs until proven otherwise and that you should overfold these spots. This opponent is doing you a favor, just turning their hand face up, and you must be observant to this and make some very snug folds as an adjustment.

#7 Poker Tell: Reshoves Too Wide Preflop

While this tell is not quite as common as some of the others Tony has listed, this tendency is definitely something you want to keep an eye on.

Consider a scenario with 20 big blinds deep in the Small Blind facing an open raise vs the Cutoff. In this scenario, you're jamming all the pairs, all of the suited broadways, mostly except KJs and including A9, A8o, K9s, Q9s, K8s, plus some suited connectors such as 98s.

You will definitely catch players who reshove this spot way too wide, jamming, reshoving too many off-suit ace combos anytime they have a broadway combo. While these hands may seem like attractive and profitable reshoves in this spot, these hands actually don't fare really well with low to medium offsuit Aces as reshoves, because they have bad equity against the calling ranges of the opener.

When you spot somebody reshoving with a high frequency using offsuit Aces, all of the pairs that you were borderline become calls, and all of the medium aces become automatic calls.

Widen your calling ranges and be careful with broadway combos like KQ in your range if your opponent is observed reshoving offsuit aces too much, assuming it's not a suited broadway that retains a lot of equity.

#8 Poker Tell: Calls Down Too Wide Postflop

Not everybody who calls down too wide postflop is just a flat-out fishy calling station, however, a lot of players have a tendency to get a bit too sticky to top-pair hands, when their relative hand strength has been negated from the runout on the board.

Against this kind of player, Tony suggests doing more of the value betting yourself and less balancing through checking when you're the out-of-position player.

This recommendation is because there are a lot of situations where we open in the middle position, a player calls us on the button, and we mix betting and checking.

Be cautious in this spot not to bet the hands that may be a mix of combos in this player’s bluffing range, as well as to bet and barrel the hands that are top pair more frequently. In a spot where for example you open AJ and flop top pair, and get flat called on the flop and turn, you just need to bet the river for value.

As this type of player enters with more second-best hands and gets married to those second-best hands postflop, you should look to bet in order to maximize the value of your strong or medium-strong hands, as well as to bluff them a lot less frequently. When facing an opponent who loves to call down, it’s critical to not try and bluff them.

#9 Poker Tell: Bluffs Too Wide Postflop

While this is a far less common tell than most, there is a specific player type that will favor bluffing postflop with a too high of a frequency.

Against this type of player, we want to mix between betting and checking.

Tony suggests checking many more of our strong hands and sometimes hands with moderate showdown value, often having to take many more hands to showdown vs larger bet sizing on average.

Once you identify somebody who loves bluffing too much postflop, it might be beneficial to let them have the lead as often as possible. With our strongest hands against these opponents, we can start playing more lines where we check/call flops, call turn, and raise the river.

When you're in doubt whether this player is going to do enough betting for you to get max value on a big hand, Tony suggests checking to them frequently, given that you have a hand that's happy to call down.

When you find yourself on a turn or a river and you're facing a tough decision to call and you have a hand with showdown value, these spots start to become automatic calls.

Against frequent bluffers with wide ranges you can set up opponents by just checking to them over and over again, letting them spew right on into you.

#10 Poker Tell: Player Not ICM Conscious

With the Independent Chip Model or ICM Poker being crucial when it comes to improving your game and forming valuable strategies, this is an approach Tony says he pays a lot of attention to.

For both on bubble situations and at final tables, ICM has a very strong influence on decision making and the way stack sizes can be played. If for example, we're the big chip leader in a tournament field where everyone is very ICM conscious, we get to pummel opponents because they know they're supposed to fold.

However, if you are a big chip leader and everyone around you is not concerned with making money, and it's just players calling off preflop shoving way too wide, then you end up being more constricted and you should tighten it up.

Against players who are not ICM conscious, if you keep playing aggressive opponents will push back on you and you end up being the one who's responsible for those ICM mistakes.

Consequently, it is critical to remember that if you're a big stack and the players around you are not ICM conscious, you won't be able to exploit that situation as much as you'd like.

ICM is an area of poker study that most MTT players should focus on more, as these strategies will be one of the best ways to increase your profit against these fields.

Simply by sitting back and waiting for other players to get involved, you'll be able to make progress at the final table as players will bust earlier than they should and ultimately help you ladder up the pay scale.

Using these winning strategies and Tony Dunst’s Top 10 Online Poker Tells to your best advantage during your next poker event, you’ll continue to minimize mistakes and maximize your opportunity to accumulate chips and ultimately win tournaments!

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Bounty Poker Tournaments are a fun way to add variety to your poker tournament schedule. The real money bounty awarded for knocking out each player creates extra action plus it gives every poker player a chance to win some cash in most cases without needing to finish inside the bubble.

Your friends at LearnWPT, The Official Poker Education Platform of The World Poker Tour, are here with expert tips to help you adjust poker strategy for each of the 3 types of bounty poker tournaments:

1. Traditional Bounty Tournaments
2. PKO Tournaments
3. Lottery Style Bounty Tournaments

Traditional Bounty Poker Tournaments

Take a deep dive into the traditional bounty poker tournament format and learn how professional poker players adjust their play to account for the bounties when making decisions at the table.

Binger’s Bounty Equity Shortcut for Calling All-Ins:

• Convert the bounty to tournament chips based on percentage of buy-in
  • $1,000 buy-in tournament, $250 of each buy-in is the bounty (bounty is 25% of buy-in)
  • 10,000 in starting chips x 25% = 2500 in tournament chips
  • Therefore 1 bounty = 2500 in tournament chips
• Add the value of the bounty in terms of chips to the total pot
  • Ex: Pot size 17,500 + 2,500 = 20,000 bounty adjusted pot size
• Calculate your equity based on the bounty adjusted pot size
• Your calling range will naturally be wider based on the increased pot size

Progressive Knockout (PKO) Tournaments

Progressive Knockouts, or PKO’s have become very popular in online poker because of the escalating values for each player’s bounty as they eliminate others from the tournament. While this style of tournament is not common in live poker, it’s incredibly popular online and you need to be aware of the strategic adjustments involved.

The buy-in structure for a Progressive Knockout splits the buy-in in half and assigns half to the prize pool and half to the player’s individual bounty. As the tournament progresses you knock players out, half of their bounty is yours to keep, while the other half is added to your bounty.

Remembers these tips when playing in a PKO Tournament:

• Because bounty values change based on each player's number of knockouts, some players are worth much more than others to knock out
• Players are incentivized to widen their ranges and go after opponents when they have a high bounty value
• Start PKO Tournaments on time and avoiding late registration is critical to maximize your chances of winning the most bounties
• It's often profitable to call with any 2 cards in PKO Tournaments when your opponent's bounty value is high
• This style of tournament has become extremely popular over the last year because it encourages so much action!

Make sure you download your free PKO Equity Reduction chart ↓ ↓ after you watch the Strategy Episode!

The PKO Equity Reduction Reference Guide is an easy and quick way to determine your equity in PKO Tournaments

Lottery Style Bounty Poker Tournaments

The most recent innovation in tournament bounty poker that has caused great excitement among poker players is the Lottery Style Bounty Tournament.

In this type of event (more commonly known as a Mystery Bounty or Bounty Confidential) players who make Day 2 and eliminate a player draw an envelope with the bounty amount hidden inside. Bounty amounts range from slightly less than a buy-in, all the way to 50 times the buy-in based on the total number of tournament entries.

Bounty Confidential Tournament at Thunder Valley Casino Resort

To maximize your chances at grabbing a massive bounty there are specific strategy reminders you should be conscious of during your next Lottery Style bounty event. Check out LearnWPT Instructor and Poker Legend Andrew “LuckyChewy” Lichtenberger’s key lessons for Lottery Style Bounty Tournaments below:

3 Lessons from LuckyChewy on Lottery Style Bounty Tournaments:

➧ Lesson #1: Making Day 2 in a Lottery Style Bounty Tournament is very important, but getting there with a big stack is critical to maximizing return on investment. Take thinner edges on Day 1 and focus on spots to accumulate chips before you reach the money so that you can have a better shot at accumulating bounties once you are in the money.

➧ Lesson #2: Bounties usually make up roughly one third of the prize pool. They are of most value when the average bounty amount in dollars is larger than the minimum cash and quite a bit larger than any pay jumps. Keeping track of which larger bounties have been won already is essential to making the highest expected value decisions in these types of events.

➧ Lesson #3: As the average bounty value decreases and you get deeper in the tournament where the prize money and associated pay jumps in the actual prize pool are larger than the average bounty amount, winning a bounty should be much less of an important factor in your decision making. Where previously you might have made a thin call to potentially win a huge bounty, you should instead evaluate this spot in terms of your overall tournament.

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We hope you enjoyed these free educational strategies for playing better in the 3 main types of Bounty Poker Tournaments from Team LearnWPT. Be sure to follow us or subscribe below for more FREE poker content.

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• PKO (Progressive Knockout) tournaments are fun, unique events where a dynamic bounty is placed on each player
• As you knock out other players, typically you are paid 50% of their bounty and the other 50% is added to your total bounty
• Unlike regular knockout tournaments the value of the bounties can grow
• If you are the victor in a PKO Tourney you win in multiple ways:
  • Win the amount in the general prize pool for 1st place
  • Win the bounties you earned over the course of the event
  • Keep the full amount of the bounty that is on your head
    

SHOULD I PLAY A PKO DIFFERENTLY?

Yes! The strategy for playing PKOs is very different from regular bounty tournament strategy.

Click below to view an in-depth Strategy Episode from LearnWPT Instructor Nick Binger to learn valuable math shortcuts and strategy tips to improve your play in PKO events.

Remembers these tips when playing in a PKO Tournament:

• Because bounty values change based on each player's number of knockouts, some players are worth much more than others to knock out
• Players are incentivized to widen their ranges and go after opponents when they have a high bounty value
• Starting PKO Tournaments on time and avoiding late registration is critical to maximize your chances of winning the most bounties
• It's often profitable to call with any 2 cards in PKO Tournaments when your opponent's bounty value is high
• This style of tournament has become extremely popular over the last year because it encourages so much action!
• Download the PKO Equity Reduction Reference Guide for an easy and quick way to determine your equity in PKO Tournaments
  
  

Have Questions about LearnWPT? Send an email to our Support Team at [email protected] or click the red CONTACT US button and they will be happy to help!

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LearnWPT Instructor Andrew "LuckyChewy" Lichtenberger took 3rd place and scored $140K in the huge 2,126 entry field World Series of Poker Event#31 $1,000 buy-in Championship Main Event!

LuckyChewy is one of the best all-around players in the game today and had 8 cashes in major live tournaments in 2019 alone.

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