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Plan Your Poker “Streets Ahead”

It’s actually a great phrase for poker.

Many poker authors and coaches tell you to plan ahead or have a plan with poker. But the mechanics of how this is done is elusive. Chamber philosophy is a “big picture” plan for the hand – how many bets before all-in, how a strong player can manipulate the pot size. But I want to talk here about the practicality of hand planning in poker. Specifically, always think of how the action will go down on the next street. › Continue reading

Tags: Chamber Philosophy, Effective Stack, Exploitation Play, hold 'em, no limit, opponent modeling, Poker, statistics

Chamber Philosophy: Multiple Chambers

Chambers are constructed preflop with the effective stack and your preflop action working together.  Remember, it is on the flop that we determine how many chambers a pot will hold.  So our actions preflop must always be thinking what the constructed pot will most likely look like on the flop.  This includes thinking about how many players we expect to follow our preflop action and see the flop.

So, on the flop, assuming one player will reach showdown with you and…

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Tags: Chamber Philosophy, Effective Stack, Exploitation Play, no limit

Chamber Philosophy: An Introduction

In poker, bets are sometimes referred to as “bullets.”  No limit and limit players are often described as “firing” bets into the pot.  Betting on turn after betting on the flop is often called “firing the second barrel,” or “barreling the turn;” betting the river after betting the flop and the turn is often called “firing the third barrel.”  Gun imagery is rampant in the poker world (look at the covers of some of Sklansky’s books for a chuckle) and this can probably be attributed to the machismo culture of the game.  In no limit hold ‘em, because effective stack sizes are so important, we are very concerned with the size of the pot – how the pot is constructed; and Chamber Philosophy is a way of understanding how a no limit pot is constructed preflop and played postflop on the three streets to follow.

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Tags: Chamber Philosophy, Effective Stack, hold 'em, no limit, Playing Unexploitably