What tactics should you adopt? My advice is to take a little bit from here and a little bit from there, and concoct your own style of NLH play. Some people try to play like me or Huck Seed or other great NLH players, such as T.J. Cloutier. This is usually a mistake, because those who attempt it are getting away from their own strengths, and they aren’t far enough along in their own poker development to do all the things?simultaneously? that the great NLH players do. As you continue to develop your own style, get rid of the tendencies that don’t work and add some of the traits that you see in the great players or read about here, but do it slowly! Make sure that a change in a move or a style works for you before you commit yourself to it for an extended period. Above all else, make sure that you’re enjoying yourself when you play NLH. Otherwise, what’s the point? Only a few players can count on making money over the long haul in this game, so you had better enjoy the journey!

To learn more about where and when the major NLH and PLH tournaments are played, go to philhellmuth.com or any one of these other sites: CardPlayer.com, PokerPages.com, and LiveAction Poker.com.

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The Devilfish is a great PLH and NLH player from Hull, in the United Kingdom. He has won PLH and NLH titles in the United States and Europe. Devilfish thrives on coming into a pot raising with almost anything before the flop. He may raise with 4-7 off suit or 2-5 off suit. He will almost always bet out at you on the flop, whether he misses the flop or hits it. This gives all the others a chance to fold their hands and gives Devilfish his second chance to win the pot with a bet or raise. (His first chance was before the flop with a raise.) He is very good at reading players, and that's one thing that all tough NLH strategies have in common. They all consider reading the other players well an essential ingredient.

If you do hit something and call Devilfish on the flop, then the pot has only just begun. If he thinks you'll fold your hand before risking a big bet on fourth street, then he'll bet big on fourth street, trying to bluff you. If he feels you'll fold your hand for an all-in bet, then he'll risk his whole tournament and bet it all. Likewise, he'll bet all your chips when he feels he has the best hand. This constant power-play pressure is also used by Men "The Master" Nguyen, Erik Seidel, Layne Flack, John Bonetti, and many other successful NLH tournament players. I used to use this approach myself, but once my opponents took to calling me down consistently, I began showing them only big hands. If they're going to call you, be ready to bust them.

If Devilfish wins a few pots before the flop, a few pots on the flop, and a few pots on the end with a bluff, he'll be way ahead of the game. This is a good theory of NLH play, but if used wrongly it can be disastrous for the player who is applying it. You can bluff at the wrong times and lose a lot of chips very quickly. As with all good NLH theories, if you use this one well you'll accumulate a lot of chips quickly, but if you use it badly you'll cough them up just as quickly.

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Some great NLH players like to call an opponent's raise with any two cards, because they think they can outplay the raiser later on in the hand. Again, I'll single out Daniel Negreanu as a player who uses this strategy. (Sorry, Danny.) In many NLH tournaments I've watched Daniel apply this strategy, knowing full well what he was doing! The key to the strategy lies in recognizing who the preflop raiser is. If the preflop raiser is a weak player (if you're new to the game, it's more fair to call you "inexperienced" than "weak"), look out for Daniel, because he'll be coming at you!

Many weaker or inexperienced players don't know how to bet or how to disguise their actions when they hit or miss the flop. They may, for example, jump out of their seats or bet in a very confident manner when they hit a flop. Conversely, they may telegraph their actions when they miss the flop, by betting with doubt or uncertainty written all over their faces. If they do hit, then Daniel folds (unless one of those "goofball" 6-8 off-suit hands of his actually hits). If they miss their hand, then Daniel bluffs them out and wins the pot. Of course, Daniel occasionally hurts his opponents or himself in a big pot when both he and his opponent hit the flop.

I give Daniel Negreanu and Huck Seed a lot of credit for being able to use this strategy successfully. Of course, if you ever travel the poker-tournament trails, you will see other top players, such as Layne Flack, Ted Forrest, Men Nguyen, and Amir Vahedi, using this dangerous strategy to good effect. But it is a bit too risky for my taste; I just don't like to be always putting a lot of pressure on myself to "read" my opponents and then fold my hands after I hit them on the flop. (Hitting a flop and then folding your hand because you read your opponent as being strong is a hard thing to do.) But someone who uses this theory well can accumulate a lot of chips very quickly!

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In the main event at the WSOP of 2001, I made a raise of $3,000 with [3 "(3 and Daniel called me with 3 "3- The floP was 3 ~3-0, and I checked and then Daniel checked. The next card off was 3, for f3-[3~3"B> so tnat 1 now had a straight and a flush draw. Any diamond would make me a flush, and any queen or eight would make me a straight. I decided that I needed to make a big bet with this draw, since Daniel had checked the flop and I thought he was weak, so I bet out $10,000.

Meanwhile, Daniel had also turned a straight and a flush draw. Any diamond made him a flush, and an eight made him a straight. Little did he know that the diamond made me a higher flush and the eight made me a higher straight! Anyway, he called the $10,000 bet, not knowing that he really didn't want to hit his hand, because it would cost him another $20,000 if he did! The last card was a "blank" 3, and now I checked and Daniel checked also, thinking that I was strong. I said, "You win it, I missed." He said, "No, you got it." At that point, I knew that my king high was good, and I flipped it faceup and collected the pot. Daniel said, "Whew, it's a good thing I missed my hand!" as he showed me his hole cards.

Why didn't I try to bluff Daniel on the end? For the same reason that he didn't try to bluff me on the end: we usually call each other when we have anything! And if he had tried to bluff me on the last round of betting, I might have just raised him if I noticed any weakness at all in his bet on the end.

This example illustrates another problem with suited connectors. You might just end up drawing to the lower straight or flush and wind up losing all your chips when you hit it!

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Here is an actual hand that I saw, between Daniel Negreanu and a two-time world champion, Johnny Chan, at the Taj Mahal in Atlantic City in the $7,500 buy-in championship event in 1999. With the blinds at $400-$800 and more than $12,000 in front of him, Johnny opened the pot for $2,600 with A-K. Daniel called the $2,600 with 0-0, and the flop came down 0-0-0. (Daniel flopped trip sevens!) Johnny bet out small ($2,000) on the flop, and Daniel raised small ($3,000). After studying things for a while, Johnny moved all-in and Daniel quickly said, "I call." Daniel wound up busting Johnny out on this hand; and Johnny, shocked, said to me a few minutes later when I approached to offer sympathy, "Can you believe this kid?" Here is a case where Daniel invested $2,600 to win more than $12,000 if he hit. The suited connectors worked like a charm.

The downside of playing like this, of course, is that you will put yourself in a lot of untenable situations. What are you going to do when the flop comes down 2-3-8 and you have 3~0' You have flopped top pair, which is fairly powerful, but what happens when your opponent has J-J in the hole? Answer: you may lose a lot of chips! In fact, if you're not careful, you can lose all your chips in this situation.

You can thus expect to have some severe chip swings when you play poker like this. When I watched Daniel use this approach in the world championship event in 2001, his chips were up to $450,000 (and the chip lead) and then down to $70,000 and then up to $700,000 (and the chip lead again!) and then down to $170,000! Up and down, up and down, so it went with Daniel at this WSOP. He is a great NLH player, but these kinds of swings just can't be good.
Let's return to the example above for a moment. Why was Johnny shocked by Daniel's play in this example hand? Because Daniel risked almost 20 percent of his own chips before the flop with [3~0- This was Just to° ni8n a percentage of his chips to risk with this hand. If you want to play this way, try not to risk more than 7 percent of your chips before the flop with these suited connector hands.

Playing the suited connectors requires an excellent read of your opponents, so that you don't get yourself into trouble when you hit some of these hands halfway. Before you try this approach, make sure that you're reading your opponents almost perfectly. I would never recommend this theory to any novice or intermediate-level player!

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This suited-connectors theory is very advanced and could be dangerous to your bankroll's health. I call it "Huck Seed's" theory, but in fact I've used it myself in days past. And besides, to pigeonhole Huck Seed's great NLH play into this one theory would be unfair to Huck. Huck can play many different ways at different stages of a tournament or side game. Be that as it may, he often does play this theory successfully, as does the talented, young, up-and-coming Daniel Negreanu.

This is the theory of calling other players' raises with suited connectors, such as 0-0 or 0~0 or even 0~0- These are excellent drawing hands in NLH. Ideally, you want to call an opponent's $400 bet with a hand like 3"3 when he has another $10,000 to $20,000 left in front of him. This way, if you hit your hand, you may win that other $10,000 to $20,000. So the idea is to call a small bet from your opponent and win a large stack of chips when you hit your hand.

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