What I have learned recently

Lately I was preparing for a day long poker class. This is the first time ever in my life I am charging for coaching poker. I put a lot of hours in preparing for the class and I found that I learned a lot myself.

1. Misdirection tells: I guess I was vaguely aware of this tell myself but didn't really pay much attention to it. However after some more observation I found that this tell is very accurate and best of all easy to spot.

Misdirection means that someone says something to explain the reason they bet or called as if to imply that what they have isn't that strong. However if you ask WHY they would do that, it would be very simple, either they are strong and want to feign weakness, or that are high level players that uses this tell in reserve. However knowing high level pros they would prefer to keep quiet that say anything, I doubt they would use this as a reverse tell.

2. Odds and price. I knew about pot odds and all that, but I got a really good refresher and it helped me to think about it in a new light. I understand the reason to take an aggressive line, because of 3 reasons.

i) Player might fold
ii) Even if villain calls you have a good price for your draw
iii) Even if villain reraises, your price is rarely bad

3. Purpose of raising preflop. As I was explaining the purpose of reraising preflop, I got a refresher and I liked the way I explained it. Purpose is 3 fold.

i) Chase away stupid hands that can outflop you
ii) Create Value so that you can have a good pot to win or bluff at
iii) Put callers on a range

Some bets can achieve all three, whereas some can only achieve 2. If your bet only achieves 1 of the 3 objectives, then you should review your bet sizing.

4. No mercy. This wasn't learned during the preparation of the course. It was one of the games I played during this week. I hit a big draw on a big pot. The other player was already down $5k plus for the night. I decided not to value bet him for his last $400. He said he would have called and most likely left for the night. He went on a crazy run and cashed out $6900 with his last $400, most of it was my money.