Daniel Negreanu & Chatta-ads

Daniel reminds me of a less sleazy Worm (Ed Norton in Rounders). Seems like a nice kid. But my favorite player is Howard Lederer. My least favorite is Hellmuth (he whines).

Value betting=betting the right amount at the right time. Say you've got pocket 2's and you hit your set on the flop (set=3 of a kind). For simplicity sake, we'll say there's only one guy in the pot besides you (head's up) and he's first to act. Let's say 2, K, 5 came out on the flop, rainbow (all different suits) and he's got AK unsuited. He'll bet his K, probably pretty heavy. You just want to call. Turn card is, let's say, an A. He'll bet harder. What you want to do is come over the top, but not by much. Make it look like you're trying to bully him or buy the pot. Hopefully he will put you on an A with no kicker or you hit your small dangler (probably the 2), and come back over the top. now he's pot committed, and now you go all in. He has to call, and will. This is what you want. He's only got 6 outs (3 A's and 3 K's) and if anything but an A or K comes out, you've just taken him out of the game (or doubled up, if he has you outstacked). Value betting can also mean bullying someone around if you've got them way outstacked. Let's say you've called with J 10 off suit, and your opponent has AK, and the flop comes rags (3, 2, 7 rainbow, or something similar). If you're first to act and you've got him way outstacked, going all in is a good way to buy the pot, depending on how good your opponent is at reading players or how weak a player he is.

Value betting can also mean going all in when it's a big pot and you've got a lot of outs. Say you've got 9 10 of spades and 7s,8s, and 10d comes out on the flop. Any spade, any jack, any 6, any 10 makes your hand. That gives you 21 outs out of 52 cards in the deck. You have almost a 50/50 chance of hitting your hand (assuming no one has higher spades than you).

Yeah, I miscounted...but the basic idea is anything more than 10 outs is good. That's why my favorite starting hand is J 10 suited. It makes the most nut straights and gives you a possible flush draw, and if you hit your J, hey, that's not bad either.

It's easiest to put together tourneys using structured betting. blinds at 5/10 the first 15 minutes, with an increase every 15 minutes. 5/10, 10/20, 15/30, 25/50, 30/60, 50/100, 100/200, 150/300, 300/600, 500/1000. Using white, red and blue chips, make the chip values white=5, red=10, blue=25. then when there are only 5 or 6 people left, depending on how many started out playing, multiply chip values by 10 and divide everyone's stack by 10. Payouts go 60%, 30%, 10%, or something like that.
I usually play online; it's a lot easier than putting together your own game.

Check out Daniel on PokerLizard.com - another exclusive interview, and classic Negreanu, straight-forward poker talk.

He's a player we'll see around for a long time...