In the "bet it all" strategy you raise all your chips to open a pot or to reraise in a pot. So if the blinds are $10-$20 and it's your turn to act from late position in a hand, then you just go ahead and open for the whole $1,000 you have in front of you. You will win that $30 in blinds quite often when you bet $1,000, but you're risking $1,000 in order to win $30! You do the math! Actually, a lot of poker players use this crazy strategy these days. The downside is that you're risking all your chips, and if your opponent picks up a strong hand you'll lose the whole $1,000; and for what: $30 in blinds? If someone else opens a pot for $60, and the slider (he likes to slide all his chips in!) decides to play his hand, then he just bets it all. ("Your $60 and $940 more.") I think the main reason these players do this is that they're afraid to play their hands after the flop, although some of them just fail to understand the long-term implications of betting a lot in order to win a little.

The good side of betting it all is that it prevents someone with a marginal hand from raising or reraising you before the flop. Suppose that I have A-J on the button and now you raise it to $60 to go in late position. I may reraise you, thinking that you're weak because you raised the pot in late position ("He's just stealing the antes"), and therefore I think you're just trying to steal the blinds. If you have 10-10 and decide to reraise me as well, I may have to call you if I don't have a lot of chips left. Now we're going to play an even-money pot (actually, not quite even money, because the 10-10 is about a 13-to-10 favorite over the A-J), which the champion players like to avoid. It's difficult to win consistently when you play a lot of coin-flip hands in a tournament! When you do bet it all before the flop, my only option left is to fold my marginal A-J.

For a while in the 1990s a lot of sliders reached the final tables at NLH events. Sliding all one's chips in is probably a good strategy for a weaker, inexperienced player. This way he will get lucky for a big pot or he will be eliminated, but at least the great players won't be able to slowly pick him apart. Still, for a good or great player, or someone aspiring to be a good or great player, anything that takes away your options in NLH is bad. Sliding a mountain all-in to try to win a molehill takes away all your options and is a very risky play as well. One bad move like this, and you find yourself out of options when the player behind you jumps up from his seat because he has pocket aces. It's too late now to take advantage of this new information, because you've already made your big move all-in!

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• Poker – Phils Nlh Strategy (0)
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By the way, I later did what's called rabbit bunting—looking at the deck after the hand is over, to see what would have happened had additional cards been dealt out—and discovered that the flop would have been K-2-3 had my opponent not folded his pocket K-K hand! I would have had one more bad beat (bad-luck) story to tell if I had only reraised a little bit or smooth-called his $70,000 bet. Of course, my opponent kept rabbit hunting, and he claims an ace was coming on the last card. (I didn't look beyond the flop!)

I will call someone on the end with ace high or worse if I think I have the best hand. I recently called a $30,000 bet from Carlos Mortensen (the WSOP champion in 2001) with K-Q high, and he had me beaten with a small pair.

I like to play conservatively and hang around in an NLH game or tournament until I smell blood or have a good situation come up for me. I wait for the chips to come to me. Eventually, my opponents start to make mistakes that I can take advantage of. When I feel the time is right, I will make some moves. I might call someone with a weak hand when he's bluffing, or I might bluff someone when I smell weakness.

I may even try to trap someone if I make the nuts, but generally I bet the nuts to give someone a chance to break himself against me in a pot. In the hand I mentioned above, where I flopped a set of aces, I actually bet big on the flop before I was check-raised! Most players wouldn't dream of betting when they're heads up with a set of aces but no draw is on the board. If my opponents are playing too tightly, I'll start to raise every pot to steal some chips, especially when there are antes to steal as well as blinds. (Antes aren't usually used in Hold'em, but they are added to Hold'em tournaments in later rounds and sometimes to high-limit side games.)

I play NLH by feel, with some discipline, to make sure I stay around for a while. And I trust my reading powers implicitly. If they punch, then I counterpunch. If they lower their guard, then I strike. I sit back and watch what others are doing, and then I make adjustments to my play. Sometimes I play my style, and other times I play a style based entirely on my opponents' styles.

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If someone raises a very small amount before the flop (less than 5 percent of my chips), I will often call with suited connectors and take the flop. When I do this, I'm putting a lot of pressure on myself to read my opponents well. Sometimes it works out beautifully and I have a huge flop and win a big pot. Sometimes I have to scramble and make a great fold in order to save chips. Sometimes I bust myself because I can't get away from (can't fold) my hand after the flop.

I'm capable of trapping with big hands like a pair of tens, jacks, queens, kings, or aces, but I'm very careful that I don't trap myself with these hands! I rarely use this play, because it can be very dangerous in NLH.

I absolutely hate getting all my chips in with any hand. When you are all-in you can go broke! Of course, if I have the best possible hand on the last round of betting, then I love to get all my chips in. I try to avoid getting all-in in NLH unless it can't be helped.

More often than I probably should, I will throw away the best hand when I play NLH. I will throw away very strong hands if I believe that they're beaten, no matter how much money is already in the pot. When you can do this, you can escape losing situations and even consider that you've gained an emotional win. I folded pocket kings before the flop at the World Championships in 2001 when my opponent opened for $1,200,1 reraised him to $3,800, and he then moved my last $12,000 all-in. I thought he had pocket aces, so I folded my hand, rather than risk my last $12,000. As he was throwing away his hand facedown, I said, "Show me pocket aces!" Amazingly, he did show them.

The next day I folded my A-6 hand after a lot of money went in before the flop and the flop came down 3-[3-3- My opponent could have had [3~[3 or [3~f3> which would have given him a flush draw and top pair, but that would have made me and my two pair the winner. He told me later that he had [3~ PVJ, for two better pair than mine! Two days later I had more than $1 million in chips in front of me, and yet I would have been broke if I hadn't thrown away both those strong hands! The ability to throw away strong hands is a mark of an NLH champion.

I often protect my hands with huge bets and raises. At the preliminary NLH event at the WSOP that I won in 2001, I moved all-in with A-A after I was check-raised on a flop of ¡3" [3-[0. Even though I had the best possible hand and had good reason to suspect that the opponent who had check-raised me on the flop was drawing dead (had no wins!), I decided that I didn't want to take a chance that my opponent might catch two perfect cards. This was the classic slow-play situation because we were the two chip leaders at the time. Instead of smooth-calling my opponent's $15,000 check-raise on the flop (as 98 percent of the pros in the world would do), I went ahead and raised him his last $50,000, and he threw his hand away. (Did I mention that I went on to win the tournament?) Perhaps if I had slow-played my hand, my opponent would have caught an eight and a nine to make a ten-high straight with his A-10 and a board of A-6-7-8-9.

In the World Championship event in 2001, faced with an $18,000 opening bet and a $70,000 raise to go, I moved all-in for more than $550,000 with my A-A, to send a message that I had A-A! A lot of players would have raised less, to lure their opponent in before the flop.

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• Poker Phils Strategy – Reraise With Nothing (0)

When I teach NLH theory in seminars, I like to use an example from the World Series of Poker (WSOP) in 2001. I had been watching Daniel Negreanu very closely during the championship event on day three. In this particular hand Daniel opened the pot for $10,000. I knew he had nothing, and when it was my turn to act I made it $30,000 to go with [jV]-[2 (bluffing). Now John "World" Hennigan decided to move all-in for $30,100, and Daniel quickly folded his hand. I called the $100 more, but I would have called another $10,000 because of the size of the pot (I had about $210,000 in front of me at the time).

After all, I already had $30,000 in the pot plus John's $30,100 and Daniel's $10,000. Much to my embarrassment, the tournament director required us to flip our cards faceup before the flop. He wasn't picking on us; that's the rule at WSOP when one player is all-in. This is a new, controversial industrywide rule in poker in 2002, and the reason that it exists is to prevent collusion. Many of the top players hate this rule because it forces them to show their hands and therefore exposes their style of play. Now players get to see, free, what the great players are doing. ("He bet all his chips with that hand?")

When the hands were announced, a lot of snickering was heard from the crowd (how did Phil get $30,000 in before the flop with 10-2?), and most of the players left in the tournament came over to watch this pot. John had 9-9 and I had 10-2! Basically, I needed a 10 to win.

Anyway, the flop and the turn came 7-8-3-K, and then a 10 hit on the last card! What a lucky card for me! I don't know what John was doing putting his last $30,000 into a pot when it was raised and reraised in front of him before the flop, and I didn't like his play at all. I hadn't been making any plays that day, and even if he suspected that I was making a play, pocket nines isn't a very good hand to make a stand with, especially given that he couldn't even raise me out of the pot. Also, John had to worry that Daniel would get involved in this pot, although Daniel was probably going to throw his hand away, facing both my raise and John's call. Still, there was some chance he was going to be facing two opponents, which meant that his 9-9 was just too vulnerable. More to the point, though, John had to figure he was going to be heads-up with me, and my reraise against Daniel should have meant strength to him.

Be that as it may, John's instinct was right, so I have to give him credit for his call, and perhaps for figuring out that Daniel and I were both bluffing! Anyway, here is an example of a pot that was won while someone was making a move. Daniel later admitted having six high in this hand (he folded his hand facedown because he didn't call the $30,100 bet).

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• Poker Judgment Is Everything In Nlh (0)

I like to take pieces of every different strategy I'll be laying out below and keep them in my arsenal for eventual use. I like to stick to a very tight beginner-type overall strategy, one involving playing very few hands for the most part. In this way, there isn't too much pressure on me to make tough decisions all the time. So most of the time in NLH I like to play only the "NLH fifteen" hands.

When someone behind me is playing too tightly, in NLH, I like to raise the pot to try to steal the blinds from him, whenever it's his big blind.

I trust my instincts when I'm deciding whether or not a player is bluffing. My poker instincts have been very, very good to me. I hone these instincts by practicing reading my opponents when I'm out of the hand being played, to try to get a better read on them for when I need it later. (In mentioning my own play I'm trying only to show you what's possible if you practice and develop your instincts.)

If someone has raised in front of me and I feel that he is weak, I usually fold anyway. But at the end of the hand I'll watch to see if he exposes his hole cards, so that I can confirm that he was weak or see that I was wrong. If I have confirmation that I was right, then I wait for him to do it again. Anyone who makes one weak raise can be expected to make more than one. When that player makes another raise and I feel it is weak, I go ahead and reraise him, to force him to fold his weak hand. This reraise wins many more chips than a mere blind steal would win, but you're also risking a lot more chips to win the pot when you reraise on a bluff.

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• Poker – The Bet It All Strategy For Nlh-yuck (0)
• Poker Phils Strategy – Reraise With Nothing Part2 (0)

In NLH all manner of plays are possible. You can fold K-K before the flop or move all-in with 2-7 off suit, bluffing before the flop, if your judgment is good enough. By the way, I've folded K-K before the flop only a few times in my life, and every time I did, I was right, because my opponent did indeed have A-A! One thing you'll learn as you play more poker is that when someone has the best possible hand, he is often easily readable.

Quiz show hosts like to say, when the pauses are too protracted, "Go with your first gut instinct. That first instinct is always right." You'll find yourself in a lot of interesting situations in NLH where your judgment and your guts will be severely tested. Whether or not you make the right decisions will go far toward determining whether or not you'll win for the day (it helps to have good cards too). You think that you're under pressure at work? I've seen players who have all their money in the world on the table call other players' bluffs for all their money. In other words, if they're wrong, then they're busted!

One excellent rule for NLH is this: if you can't allow yourself to fold the best hand, then you can't win. In many of the tournaments that I've won I've had occasion to fold the winning hand. In the World Championships in 1989, when just four players were left, I folded pocket tens before the flop against Johnny Chan's pocket nines in a big pot, but I still went on to win the tournament! It's not who wins the battle; it's who wins the war. Don't be afraid to fold your hand in NLH if you think that it's beaten. If it was the winner, so what? You made your decision, and you're still at the table with chips. Stay focused on winning, not on looking back at your untimely fold.

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• Poker Phils Strategy – Reraise With Nothing Part3 (0)
• Poker Phils Strategy – Reraise With Nothing (0)