You Can Sleep When You’re Dead

Erick Lindgren was born in Burney, California and didn’t start focusing on poker until his mid-twenties. He now lives in Las Vegas and plays live cash games in the casinos often as well as major poker tournaments throughout the year. Erick first seen success at the poker tables in 2002 shortly after making the decision to become professional with a win at a major tournament at the Bellagio.

After winning his first major tournament in 2002 Erick has started playing a lot more poker and becoming a much more recognized player. Only a few months after winning his first major event Erick went on to win a WPT event and then a couple months later won another WPT PartyPoker event. After winning these events throughout 2002-2003 he went unnoticed for a little bit and didn’t win any major events.

In 2005 Erick managed to finish second place in a WSOP event which was his best finish up to that point on the WSOP circuit. After his second place finish he came in fifth at the LA Poker Classic and then won first place at the Professional Poker Tour tournament only a week afterwards. Erick also won a big event in the Aussie Millions which was the $100,000 buy-in event where he earned $1 million.

2008 was the best year thus far for Erick Lindgren and he managed to win his first WSOP bracelet in the $5000 Mixed Holdem event. Apart from winning his first bracelet in the WSOP in 2008 Erick also cashed in four other tournaments throughout the year which earned him the WSOP Player of the Year award. Erick won over $1.3 million in 2008 alone through live events and has earned $7.3 million throughout his career in live tournaments. Erick has won one WSOP bracelet and two WPT titles since starting to play poker and he still has many years of playing left in front of him. Erick is also one of the most consistent poker players and has finished in the money 19 times in WSOP events and 16 times in WPT events.

Erick is also the proud author of a poker strategy book he wrote which is called “World Poker Tour – Making the Final Table”. The book teaches strategy to players for multi-table tournaments and how you can survive huge playing fields with a little amount of chips. Erick has proven to be one of the best tournament poker players in the world and his book is definitely worth reading if you’re planning on playing any live MTT events soon.

When Erick isn’t playing poker on FullTilt, he enjoys spending time with his poker buddies and they usually golf and make prop bets together. One of the prop bets Lindgren needed to complete once was to play four rounds of golf on a scorching hot day in Vegas and score under 100 every round. He also needed to walk with his clubs and couldn’t use a cart. He managed to complete the bet and won $350,000 by completing it.

The “All-In” Poker Mentality

The all-in poker mentality isn’t always a good strategy to play on Full Tilt Poker, and you need to know when you should and when you shouldn’t go all-in. There are plenty of times when an all-in bet will take down a pot no matter what two cards you have, but you never want to risk your chips on a complete bluff. We’re going to walk through some tips that you need to analyze when you’re debating on whether or not to go all-in. Don’t just take these tips and think you can implement them and that’s all, you’ll also need to spend time analyzing your opponents. You need to know the playing style of the opponent that you’re playing against so that you can make the best decision. The tips below are just questions you need to ask yourself before going making the all-in bet.

* Ask yourself whether or not you think anyone is going to call you if you make an all-in bet. Your cards don’t always matter and you need to play the players rather than the cards. If the hand is you and two tight players then you can steal the pot with an all-in bet most times.

* Analyze the chip stacks and if you have the biggest stack on FullTiltPoker.com then you’re going to be able to bully most players simply because they won’t want to play against you. A player with a big stack who isn’t scared to bet with any two cards is a scary image at the poker table and one that you want to adopt when you can.

* If you’re a short stack on the table you need to ask yourself whether you think you have a good enough hand to go all-in. You also need to ask yourself whether or not you think any of your opponents will make the call. Sometimes you’ll be able to steal the pot by making an all-in move because your opponents have nothing.

* Take a look at your opponent’s chip stacks and find out how the players left in the pot fare to the rest of the table. If a short stack is in the hand and barely hanging on then it might not be a good time for an all-in bet unless you want the short stack to call you. If you’re semi bluffing though then you’re going to want to be careful against the short stacks at FullTiltPoker.net because they’re prone to calling.

* Although I mentioned that you can go all-in with any two cards at some points in a hand when there is only 1-2 players in the pot, but generally you don’t want to bluff an all-in. You want to at least have some options for a straight draw or flush draw that could win you the hand if someone we’re to call you. You never want to be all-in and drawing dead to your opponent’s hand.

When you push your chips all-in the pot at PokerStars.de you’re putting the pressure on your opponent and taking the pressure off of you. It can be difficult to call an all-in and it’s much easier pushing your chips into the pot rather then making the call. Implement these tips into your poker game and you should be able to target better positions to make your all-in moves.

Poker players always discuss proper player etiquette and what players should and shouldn’t do at the poker table. It’s a widely discussed topic and many players have there own guidelines that they follow to ensure that they don’t anger any other poker players. Although you’re playing to take your opponents money there are some things that a poker player shouldn’t do when sitting down at the Full Tilt poker table and we’re going to look over some of those things in this article.

• When you fold your cards in a hand this means that you’re out of the hand and you should not talk about the hand to anyone at the poker table. Doing so will frustrate your opponents and you’ll have an entire table gunning for your chips.

• When you’re playing online poker don’t multi-table unless you know you can handle the action. Slowing down the games you’re involved with because you’re multi-tabling with ruin the game for a lot of players and you won’t make any new friends.

• If you lose a hand whether it is because a bad read or a bad beat don’t let it get to you. You should never become angry with an opponent because you lost a hand. Don’t the beat like a man and get your chips back in the next hand that you play.

• When you lose a pot just muck your cards and don’t show them no matter how close you we’re to winning the pot. It doesn’t do you any good and it only gives your good opponents an edge because they get to see how you played your hand.

• If you get lucky and put on a bad beat on your opponent at PokerStars com take the chips and be grateful that you won the pot. Don’t talk about the bad beat at the table for the next ten hands because you’re only going to get your opponents upset with you.

• You should never use any swear words at the poker table no matter what the situation is. There are always older women and men playing and you need to show some respect at the table.

• Although showing your bluff in a big pot is sometimes alright you shouldn’t show every single bluff you make at the table to your opponents. First off you’re going to attract callers next time you do it, and you’ll also start getting under the skin of your opponents if you keep betting and then showing nothing. If you bluff the pot just throw your cards into the muck once you won and keep your opponents guessing about what you have.

• Don’t ever persuade an opponent to call another opponent because you’ll not only get the one player mad with you, but usually the entire table will want you gone.

Playing interent poker isn’t nearly as fun when the entire table dislikes you and no one talks to you. You want to make sure you have fun at the poker tables, but at the same time you need to respect the fact everyone else is trying to have fun as well. Keep the fun clean and you’ll be fine, break any of the golden rules above and you’ll have your opponents wishing you we’re gone.