Are you in the bankroll building stage of your online poker career? If you don't even know the answer to that, then you need a lot of luck if you are going to avoid a reload. However, if you do know that you are in a building and learning stage where you want your $50 or $100 to last as long as it can while you are learning the game then you may have a critical decision to make. That is, should you be playing in the NL cash games or sit and go and multi-table tournaments?

If you follow Chris Ferguson's exploits at Full Tilt Poker, while building his bankroll he mainly sticks to the tournament circuit keeping his buys in check, and playing straight-up solid poker. (Yes, the same Chris Ferguson who won the 2000 WSOP!) In fact, on his quest to go from $0 to $10,000 at Full Tilt in a bankroll management challenge, he made his first big leap in a $1 Multi-table tournament where he finished 2nd of 683 entries and earned a whopping $104.

he art of slow play in poker is a vital skill that once learned is a dangerous play that can destroy and cripple opponent's chip stacks. Simply put, slow playing is displaying weakness when your hand after the flop is extremely strong. For example, you have pocket fives and the flop comes 7-5-Q all off suit. This is a beautiful flop to slow play because there are no flush draws and remote straight draws that are unlikely.

To slow play in this situation you merely check when its your turn to act and let your opponent(s) do the betting for you. Slow playing is most effective against aggressive and super-aggressive players that will bet if no one else does almost every time. Once they bet, don't jump the gun and go all-in just discipline yourself and simply call. On the turn there's not really a card that can come out that will scare you too much so check-call again. On the river when your opponent bets this is when you raise or check-raise if you want to try to extract some more chips.

Draws are all about "pot odds". Are the odds of you making your draw greater than the money you will win?

Example: You have the AJ of hearts and the flop is Q 8 3 and two of them are hearts.

If either of the next two cards is a heart you'll have made a flush which is a powerful poker hand. Not only that but you would have the "nut flush", the highest possible flush because you hold the ace of hearts.

You are already dreaming about how to spend all that money you're going to win! But wait.

What are the odds of making your flush with two more cards to come?

There are two hearts in your hand and two on the board, leaving nine hearts in the deck of forty seven unseen cards.

When you are faced with a call when you have a hand you are sure is not the best use this table to determine if you should call or fold. Example - you have 98 and the board is 65K - Player A bets into you for $1 the pot is $7 To figure out whether to call or fold take his (bet + the pot) and take the (bet x the odds) if the (bet + the pot) is greater call if not fold Lets do this example - you have 4 outs (four 7's) the odds for four outs on the turn is $1 x 9 = $9 the pot is $1 + $7 = $8. The Pot is less than the odds so it would be correct to fold Note If you are drawing to a hand that could be beat even if you hit one of your outs consider folding. Example hands A2 board 2TJ bet is $1 pot is $8 >> Fold 98 board is TJK bet is $1 pot is $8 >> Fold 9h8h board is 6c7cAc bet is $1 pot is $8 >> Fold In all hands you had odds to call but even if you hit you could still lose so it is correct to fold. Could there be a raise behind you? You must also take that into consideration before you call You have a mediocre hand you will often be faced with a situation where you have an ok hand and don't know how to play it example - AJ and the board is QJ2 How many players are still in the pot? If the answer is 3+ play the hand like a drawing hand unless no one shows stenght than play aggressively by betting raising or check raising (with the intention of raising people out not building the pot). The larger the pot the more aggresive you should play. If there are only 1-2 people in the hand play very aggressive and very tight. Don't be afraid to raise - If player A bets you can raise to force out player C plus player A will probably check to you on the turn giving you options. If at any point you're raised play the hand like a drawing hand. You have a good hand a good hand example - KT and the board is K97 Play this hand very aggressive until someone shows strength then play the hand like a drawing hand. Check raise - if you're in early position and you're sure someone in late position will bet, check than raise. This will force the players to call 2 bets, if they do its probably the incorrect call whereas if you bet out they would most likely be making a correct call. You have a great hand example - AQ and the board is AsQh6c Don't slow play! Bet out no matter how many opponents there are its probably correct to bet out unless you're sure you can check raise. If someone infront of you bets call if the pot is small (only a few opponents and there was no raise preflop) and raise if the pot is large (5+ players or the pot was raised preflop) If someone raises your bet and you have position wait for the turn to raise him, this is because the bet doubles on the turn. (Exception - there are others in the pot raise on the flop to get these extra bets they might drop out on the turn most poor players call the flop with anything and fold to a turn bet) If you don't have position example - you bet Player A behind you raises, re raise him back he could be looking for a free card. You have a monster example QQ and the board is Qh8h8c play this hand just like you would a great hand with a few exceptions: If someone bets in front of you don't raise forcing your opponents to fold unless the pot is huge.

Just about any topic you can think of has an online forum dedicated to it. Whether you are looking for a specific answer or just like to chat about your favorite subject, forums are a great way to exchange information and make friends. Poker is no exception. In fact, there are thousands of poker communities on the internet.

Poker forums are great place to discuss strategy and talk about bad beats. If you're not sure whether you made the correct play or not, you can post the hand history or the situation and ask other members what they think. Many times you will get lots of different answers and suggestions depending on the type of player who answers. It's interesting to see how others would have handled the situation.

Playing poker while in the blinds is almost guaranteed to be a losing proposition, especially the small blind because you often have to turn down great odds while holding brutally weak hole cards. In sit and go tournaments, it's critical that you don't lose your cool over having to fold too much from the small blind, because what you are actually doing is making it as profitable as the unfortunate position can be.

If you are using a poker calculator like tournament indicator while playing sit and go tournaments, you will find that the odds display will show that to "fill up the small blind" are actually favorable to call almost any hand when there are multiple limpers. It's fair to call in some of the spots, but most times you should still fold with the real bad Group 9 (or worse) Sklansky hands like J3os, 92os, or 84os. You should be looking for one, two or three gapped connectors, suited cards with an ace or face, and T5s for straight potential.