Ruff Poker Blog
Learn Train Dominate Poker

A lot of poker players are under the assumption that once they know the odds and are able to implement a solid strategy that they are entitled to win at the poker tables. Unfortunately there is a lot more to be a winning poker player than just knowing the math of the game and when [...]

If you have ever wondered why people do crazy things at a poker table you can usually trace their wild play back to something known as Premack’s Principle. Premack’s Principle says that people will take part in less desirable activities in order to get to take part in a desirable activity. In poker this helps [...]

When poker players deride another player for berating another player’s foolhardy play we call this ‘tapping the glass’, and there is a very good reason why you don’t want to alert the fish that there is any possible danger lurking. You’d be surprised at how often a loose player is dressed-down for their play, and [...]

Baye’s Theorem is a very important principle for poker players to utilize. Baye’s Theorem is used in conditional probability to show the chances of an event or outcome after taking into account some piece of observed information. For instance, the chances of you holding AA are roughly 220-to-1 (.4%). However, if the player before you [...]

The Peter Principle is perhaps my favorite satirical theory; the Peter Principle states that “in a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to their level of incompetence”. Basically, given enough time even the hardest-working, most competent, employee will eventually reach their failure point. The Peter Principle definitely applies to poker in that virtually every poker [...]

With the World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) heating up on PokerStars the poker community is highly tuned in to any changes taking place on the world’s largest online Poker Room. So, it didn’t take long for a thread to appear on the 2+2 poker forums regarding the disappearance of three well known Poker Pros [...]

There are certain types of poker players that you simply don’t want in your game, and not all of them are good players. Some players just grind on your nerves to the point that you feel like you have entered poker hell. In this article I will take a look at the five different types [...]

In this column I’ll make an attempt to handicap each of the 10 finalists’ chances of adding their names to the very exclusive roster that makes up the Poker Hall of Fame -there are currently 37 Poker Hall of Fame members. Even though all of the final 10 nominees are extremely deserving of the honor, [...]

When it comes to generalizations in poker none rings truer than “You want to maximize your wins and minimize your losses”, but the practical application of this concept often escapes people. Whether your goal is to maximize or minimize, the methods are the same, and involve three key concepts:

1. Utilizing position
2. Pot control
3. Isolating weak [...]

When it comes to generalizations in poker none rings truer than “You want to maximize your wins and minimize your losses”, but the practical application of this concept often escapes people. Whether your goal is to maximize or minimize, the methods are the same, and involve three key concepts:

1. Utilizing position
2. Pot control
3. Isolating weak [...]