Add to that the number of occasions you are dealt an Ace or a King, or two big cards (A-K, A-Q etc) and a hand you like to play for luck or for the fun of it, and you may have playable starting hands up to 50% of the time.

However, even with a decent starting hand, you will often find yourself behind after the flop.

Roughly:

• one in eight times your pocket pair will flop a set

• between one in one hundred and one in two hundred times*, your connecting cards will flop a winning straight (*depending upon the gaps and if playing high, low or middle cards)

• one in one hundred and twenty times your suited cards will flop a flush

Of course there are cards to come, but they usually cost even more than you have already paid to see the flop. These add to the dangers of fishing.

Your suited connectors will give you hope with a four flush and four straight draw one in every seven times you see a flop. But that quadruple combination will only come good one in four times from there.

You have to be selective as to which poker hand to play and which to pass on.

The maths

Do the mathematics roughly. Playing online poker at a ten seat table, with a mix of players with styles from conservative to aggressive, the average pot on a fixed limit table will be equivalent to twelve times the big blind.

On a $0.25/0.50 table the average pot will be $3.00. If you play five hands during one circuit of the dealer button it will cost a minimum of $1.25.

However, many times it will cost you at least twice the big blind to see the first three community cards. Your total outlay so far will be $2.50 and you have yet to bet on a flop.

If you are an average poker player, enjoying the average luck of the table, you will win one in ten hands and will win back the average pot of $3.00... less the rake. The rake paid at the showdown on that level will be $0.25. So assuming you make constant correct decisions and don't get overtaken in a hand, your profit margin is slight.

Of course, you won't always get it right and your opponents will overtake you with annoying frequency. So playing five hands in ten, even without considering the rake, often you will be losing money over a series of sessions.

On a no limit and pot limit table the average pot will be higher but the calculations are proportionally similar in terms of the outlay/rake/return.

Individual hands do not work on averages and good players will be exploiting their starting hands in pots that they know they have a better than average chance of winning.

If you reduce your starting hands to three in ten, and win one in ten per round then your outlay at $0.25/0.50 fixed limit will by $1.50, your return will be $3.00 less the rake. Now, even with the wrong decisions you will occasionally make and the suck outs we all enjoy, you should still see a profit from your efforts.

Play the best and muck the rest.

When you catch

One of the biggest dangers of fishing is when you catch. As an example say you had a dip into a pot from middle order with suited connectors. The button, small blind and big blind have come along too.

Your cards are 5d-6d.

If the flop comes down with 2 diamonds, how much will you pay to draw another; if you get a third community diamond, you will only be 6 high on the flush. How confident can you be in that situation.

What if the flop comes down giving you the straight but contains three clubs. Again, how confident can you be in that situation.

With fishing hands like 5-6 suited, you really want to flop a monster.

Roughly, two unmatched cards will flop:

• two pairs one in every twenty four times

• trips one in every seventy five times

• a full house one in every eleven hundred times

• quads one in every ten thousand times

I am not saying it is wrong to take a look with suited connectors occasionally or regularly if you are that type of player. However, always temper the number of hands you play to the character of table you are on.

If the poker table is aggressive and you ignore the dangers of fishing, when you enter a hand paying the minimum bet, you can be raised by a player acting later; often then your mindset says, 'I've already put X chips in, it is only X+Y to see a flop.' Unless disciplined in your play you may get sucked into the hand, continuing to add more chips to what may ultimately be someone else's pot.

Table image is another problem with the dangers of fishing. I know I have a table playing the way I want them to, if for the majority of the time when I bet ~ they fold.

If you play too many hands the table will know that you cannot always have the best hand:

• you will get called more often

• you will get raised more often

• you will get re-raised more often

• you will suffer more bad beats

• you will constantly moan about the bad beats

• your partner will grow tired of hearing you moan and walkout

• you will not be able to afford the mortgage on your own

• you will find yourself drunk in a gutter shaking your fist at passing cars, smelling of cheap booze and last weeks underwear

• you will be picked up by the police and locked away in an institution for several years until finding *god, a good woman or an alternative to poker (*delete where applicable)

All because you ignored the dangers of fishing.

What you should do with the playable poker hands

As stated at the beginning of this page; you will have a playable starting hand 50% of the time, so you will need to be selective. From an early table position pick the best hands to play, but still be prepared to lay down the really good ones pre-flop if you think you may be behind.

From a later seat (mid table) you may think to enter the pot with a lesser hand; again being prepared to fold if the betting goes too high when you are playing a lesser hand.

From the cut off or the button, you have a good seat to know how or if you will play the hand pre-flop and the best seat for information post-flop.

Post-flop, weigh up your options taking into account the betting made or expected along with the stack sizes and if playing a tournament the game state. Take on the good draws and dump the rest.