Strategy Of Texas Holdem Poker

Good Texas Hold'em Strategy Although it's possible to talk about Texas Hold'em strategy indefinitely, due to the game's subtle complexities, we've compiled three of the most salient pieces of poker advice every aspiring pro should know. Pulling off fancy bluffs and check-raising the river with a small value bet may be enticing propositions. Preflop Texas Holdem Strategy Your preflop poker strategy forms the foundation of your game. Your first decisions will be made preflop during a hand, so it is important to get these decisions right. Thankfully this is one of the easier areas of the game to understand. Poker Strategy: 2-7 Triple Draw 'Flop' Fundamentals Poker Strategy: Why You Need To Stop Raising With Top Pair Tags: Poker Strategy, Poker Tips, Ed Miller, No-Limit Hold'em. Texas Holdem Strategy Texas Holdem has quickly become the most popular casino poker game online or off. At any time, hundreds of real money Texas Hold'em tables are going at sites like PartyPoker.com, the largest online poker room on the Net.

Texas holdem poker is the most popular card game in the
United States. It’s also hugely popular in Europe and other
countries. Omaha has a firm foothold in other countries, too,
but Texas holdem has a big following just about everywhere.

If you want to be a winning poker player, it’s almost a given
that you’ll need to learn at least the basics of Texas holdem
strategy. After all, you’ll be able to find more games (and more
weak players) at those tables than anywhere else.

Texas holdem strategy is a huge subject, too. We have
literally dozens of pages on various subtopics related to the
subject. Below we provide brief introductions to many of the
strategic concepts you need to understand. In almost every
instance, we link to a comprehensive page devoted to that
concept, too.

Texas Holdem Playing Styles – We provide a detailed look at the various ways to play Texas Holdem poker by looking at the different playing styles and poker strategies one can employ at the poker table. There’s no one correct way to play and poker players must adjust their game and strategy to suit the situation and table conditions.

Low Limit Strategy vs High Limit Strategy

The strategies you use when playing for lower limits differ
from the correct strategies at higher limit games. As a general
rule—and make no mistake, there are exceptions—you’ll find more
unskilled players at the lower limits than you will at the
higher limits.

For one thing, it means that a more direct approach to the
game will often be rewarded. We can sum up this direct approach
in 2 sentence:

Get the hands. Then bet the hands.

First of all, it means don’t bother trying to play second
rate hands. Don’t spend a lot of time trying to bluff. Unskilled
players have a hard time laying down hands, and bluffing only
works if your opponents are willing and able to fold.

Second, it means that when you do get good cards, start
putting your money into the table. Bet or raise. Don’t
cold-call. Don’t check. Get paid off for your hands.

Finally, keep in mind something called “the schooling
effect”. Lots of players at this level are calling stations.
This means that if you have a speculative hand, like suited
connectors, you can often get enough other players into the pot
to get paid off big when you hit a strong flop.

When you start playing in higher stakes games, you have to
get more creative in order to win. Skilled players are likely to
notice if you’re playing ABC poker, and they’ll be able to take
advantage of that. So you’ll have to learn how to mix it up.

Microlimit strategy is another aspect, too. The same
strategic concepts that apply to microlimit games, only more so.

Blind Play

It’s important to know how to play from the blinds. In fact,
the blinds are some of the most important positions in a Texas
holdem game. Correct blind strategy is a complicated subject,
too.

Here are some of the basics:

What most players concern themselves with is defending their
blinds. A situation that comes up often is that everyone will
fold before the action gets to the player before the blinds, and
you’ll wind up with some aggressive player who will raise into
you when you’re in the blinds. They might be holding nothing.

You’ll need to be paying attention to your opponents’
tendencies when deciding whether or not they’re just trying to
steal your blinds. It’s okay to fold when someone raises you in
the blind, especially if you have junk.

But it’s not okay to fold EVERY time someone raises your
blind.

Sometimes you need to call and then raise on the flop.

And sometimes you need to re-raise their raise before the
flop.

Some of this depends, too, on what cards you’re holding. If
you have a solid hand (like KK or AA), and someone raises into
your blind, don’t be afraid to try to get them all in.

In fact, premium hands almost play themselves in this
situation. As long as you avoid slow-playing, you’ll be fine.

It’s the more speculative opening hands, like low pairs and
suited connectors, where you have to start making decisions.

And the best guideline to making those decisions is your
knowledge of your opponents’ playing tendencies.

Playing Styles

If you’ve done ANY reading at all about playing styles in
Texas holdem, you’ll know that players are often categorized
according to how many hands they play and according to how often
they raise or bet.

• Players who play a lot of hands are called “loose”, and
  players who play only their best hands are called “tight”.
• Players who bet and raise a lot are called
  “aggressive”
• Players who call and check a lot are called “passive”

Most experts agree that tight-aggressive play is the winning
formula, especially at lower levels. This means you should focus
on playing good hands, and betting and raising when you have
them.

You’ll also find plenty of players who do well with a
loose-aggressive style. They play a lot of hands, but they bet
and raise so often that they win a large number of pots without
a contest.

If you win enough smaller pots, you can use that money to
“freeroll” your way into hands where you have more speculative
holdings. This is an especially important strategy to think
about when you get into higher limit play.

Guide to Playing Styles

Odds and Probability

Understanding the odds and probability involved in Texas
holdem are a critical skill. The most important aspect of this
to understand has to do with comparing the odds of hitting your
“outs” and the pot odds being offered.

The first concept to understand is the concept of “outs”. An
“out” is a card that will complete your hand and give you the
winning hand.

You have 2 cards in your hand, both hearts. And the flop also
has 2 hearts on it. So you have 4 cards to a flush.

There are 13 hearts in a deck of cards. 4 of them are already
out there, so 9 of them are left in the deck. And there are 47
cards left in the deck.

Those 9 cards are your “outs”. Those cards will give you what
you need to have a winning hand. (Assuming that you have the top
flush at the showdown, anyway.)

You can compare those odds to the odds that the pot is
offering you to decide whether or not to call a bet.

In this case, the odds of hitting the hand you want are 9/47,
or about 1/5, or 4 to 1. But you get 2 chances at it.

Suppose there’s $100 in the pot, and it only costs you $10 to
call and stay in the pot. You’ll lose 4 times for every time you
win, but you’ll win 10 to 1 on the 5th time. Overall that’s a
profitable play.

Comparing pot odds to the odds of hitting your hand is just
one example of probability in action during a Texas holdem game.

Another factor expert players consider is how likely it is
that other players will fold. You have to take this into account
when making decisions, too.

If you’re playing against a super-tight opponent in the
blinds, and you estimate that there’s a 90% chance he’ll fold
against any raise, raising is almost always the correct play
there.

But you can’t estimate these kinds of odds unless you’re
playing close attention to your opponents’ playing tendencies.

Preflop and Postflop Playing Strategy in Texas Holdem

The first 2 cards you’re dealt in a hand of Texas holdem are
your hole cards. That’s considered your “preflop” hand, and you
need a strategy for how to play them. We’ve seen estimates that
suggest you can break even if you master preflop play, even if
you’re only an average player after the flop.

We mentioned a tight aggressive approach, earlier. This holds
especially true when playing before the flop. It’s also
important to take into account position when you’re playing
preflop.

It’s easy to find a lot of suggestions about which hands you
should and shouldn’t play from various positions before the flop
in holdem. Our favorite way to think about these hands is to
categorize them.

Here are some categories of preflop hands to think about:

High Pairs

High pairs are 2 cards of the same rank that are ranked 10 or
higher. The higher they’re ranked, the better. Aces and kings
are super hands to play preflop, but the value of these pairs
drops dramatically when you’re looking at queens, jacks, or
tens.

Most experts recommend raising from any position with a pair
of aces or kings regardless of what your opponents have done.
But you need more judgment when dealing with a pair of queens or
jacks. If you’ve seen 3 players before you bet and raise
repeatedly, those queens might be an underdog. Some of this
depends on your opponents’ tendencies, too.

Smaller Pairs

Smaller pairs are legitimate starting hands, too, but you’re
hoping for them to improve on the flop. The higher the ranking
of the lower pair, the better off you are. A pair of 9s isn’t
terrible, but a pair of 2s borders on worthless. That’s because
even if you hit another 2 on the flop and make your 3 of a kind,
there are a lot of other potential 3 of a kinds that could beat
you.

Suited Connectors

Suited connectors can be some of the most interesting
starting hands to play. These are 2 cards of the same suit which
are also close in rank. The 10 and J of spades would be
considered suited connectors. These are speculative hands,
because you need them to improve in order to win. But they have
lots of potential—you could make a flush or a straight, for
example. And if the suited connectors are high enough in rank,
you might even wind up with a big pair.

Big-Little Suited

Big-little suited is even more speculative, because you’re
missing some of the straight possibilities. The higher the
cards, the better. An AK suited or an AQ suited is almost as
good as a pair of queens or jacks, but an A4 suited is pretty
speculative. Everything needs to go right in order for you to
win a hand with those cards.

The tendency is to want to bet and raise with your really
strong hands before the flop, but with more speculative hands,
you want to check and call, hoping to get into the hand cheap
with a lot of other players so you’ll get paid off if you hit
your hand.

Who has acted before you and what they did is also super
important to your decision here.

We have entire sections devoted to preflop play, starting
hands, and starting hand charts. All of these topics are closely
related.

Tournament Strategy and Sit n Gos

Tournaments require a different strategy than ring games,
because the goal is to be one of the last men standing in a
tournament. In a ring game, you can play forever, and the chips
are worth what the chips are worth.

But in a tournament, the values of the chips change as the
game continues. The blinds increase on a regular basis during a
tournament, too, so your strategy has to change based on the
size of your stack versus the size of the blinds.

Some Texas holdem players specialize in tournaments. Others
prefer ring games. The thing about tournaments is that they have
a higher variance. Some players like this, but others prefer a
steadier stream of winnings.

Here’s what we mean:

You might play in a dozen tournaments with an average buy-in
of $100 each. You might only place in the money in one of them,
but you also might win $4000 in that one, so you’re profitable.
But it took you a while to become profitable.

A ring game player, on the other hand, might play steadily
and win $1000 a month consistently 5 months out of 6, having a
losing money only occasionally.

Your temperament will determine which is better for you.

We have sections about tournaments in general and about sit
in go tournaments specifically, too. (A sit n go is a specific
type of tournament that’s most prevalent on the Internet.)

Psychology, Tilt, Tells and Texas Holdem Strategy

The psychology of Texas holdem covers multiple subjects. For
one thing, understanding what your opponents’ emotional
tendencies are can be a big edge in any Texas holdem game. If
you know that one player likes to be the sheriff (he calls a lot
of hands to make sure you’re not winning money by bluffing),
you’ll know the best way to extract the most money from him.

If you know that a player makes bad decisions when he’s mad,
and if you notice what makes him mad, you can subtly manipulate
his anger to take advantage of those bad decisions. In fact,
this is a serious phenomenon called “tilt”.

A player who is tilting is putting money into the pot because
of anger, not because it’s the mathematically correct play. It’s
easy to take advantage of players with that tendency.

Understanding your own psychology is just as important. You
have to know when you’re on tilt. You also need to know how to
avoid tilt to begin with. If you realize you’re on tilt, it’s
time for a break. You might even need to take the rest of the
night off from playing poker.

Tells are another aspect of poker psychology. Tells are
subtle physical clues as to what kinds of cards your opponents
are holding. Most players have tells. And most players aren’t
good at spotting them.

Entire books have been written about spotting tells at the
poker table. Tells are only one aspect of Texas holdem strategy,
but they’re a “sexy” aspect of it. Some players, especially
beginners, spend too much time and energy thinking about and
trying to spot tells.

Texas Holdem Tips and Advice

We have pages devoted to Texas holdem tips and Texas holdem
advice, too. These are a great way to get introduced to some of
the more basic concepts in holdem.

We can provide you with a couple of quick pieces of advice
and a few tips, here, too:

You’ll find a lot of really great books with
in-depth treatments of poker strategy. The Theory of Poker by
David Sklansky is essential reading for any poker player,
regardless of which game you’re playing. Super/System by Doyle
Brunson (and others) is also worth reading, especially the
sections about limit and no limit holdem. Anything by Ed Miller
is worth your time, too. And those are just for starters. Expert
Texas holdem players are almost always well-read Texas holdem
players.

If you’re playing online, you should use the
note-taking function in the poker room software to take some
notes on your opponents. If you’re playing live, you should keep
a journal and write about what’s going on. You should keep book
on your opponents, but you should also track your results and
how you got them. Texas holdem is a thinking person’s game. Few
things clarify your thoughts on a subject better than writing
about it.

Good players bet and raise. Weak players
check and call. You can find loose aggressive players who are
profitable, and you can find tight aggressive players who are
profitable. What you can’t find are passive players who are
profitable. Loose passive players are calling stations, and they
lose money right and left. Tight passive players are rocks, and
they lose money, too—just more slowly than calling stations.

If you’re a beginner, you probably need to play
fewer hands. As you grow more proficient, you can play more
hands. You might even be the type of player who can succeed as a
loose aggressive player. But we don’t recommend that as a
starting goal. That’s something to experiment with once you’ve
mastered tight aggressive play.

If you’re new to the game, play for stakes you
can easily afford. Microlimits online are a great place to
start. If you’re playing live, start with the lowest stakes
limit games you can play. You can move up in stakes as your
bankroll grows and as you become more confident in your skills
as a player.

Find some buddies who can talk intelligently about
playing Texas holdem, even if they’re only online buddies. You
can find excellent discussions of poker strategy on various
forums. Two Plus Two is one of our favorites, although they’re
not as friendly toward newcomers as we would hope.

Being detached from the outcome of each hand is a
crucial mental skill that many players can’t master. If you’re
getting mad about results all the time, you’re going to have a
hard time playing correctly. How do you become detached from the
outcomes? Pat yourself on the back for making the correct play,
regardless of the results. You might also spend some time
studying meditation techniques. These can help you get your
emotions under control.

There are no advantages to being drunk at the
poker table. Alcohol impairs your judgment, period. It’s better
to just stay sober. We know players who “pretend” to be drunk at
the table in order to take advantage of other players. But most
of them are not really pretending. If you smell like booze,
you’re probably drunk.

A lot of players try clever fancy
moves at the poker table because they’ve watched too many
episodes of World Poker Tour. Here’s the secret about those
shows: they’re heavily edited. Most poker hands are boring in
the extreme. They show you the most exciting ones. But it’s easy
to get confused and think poker is played one way based on what
you’ve seen on television, but it ain’t necessarily that way in
real life.

We mentioned this before, but Texas holdem is a
thinking person’s game. If you want to succeed, you need to pay
attention to what’s going on, even when you’re not involved in
the hand—which is going to be most of the time, because most of
the time you won’t have playable cards. Think about the numbers.
Think about what cards the other players might have when they’re
making their decisions. This will go a long way toward improving
your game.

Our best Texas holdem advice?

Don’t get suckered into thinking you’re a great player just
because you’re on a winning streak. This is the biggest mistake
most new players make. Texas holdem is a high variance game.

That means luck is a big factor.

Advanced Strategy

We have an entire section devoted to advanced strategy for
Texas holdem players. We won’t get into a lot of detail about
advanced tactics on this page, but we will say that advanced
strategies only start to matter when you’re playing other expert
players.

You don’t need advanced strategy to beat novice players.

Solid ABC poker is good enough to beat novice players.

But once you start dealing with thoughtful, expert players
with lots of experience, you have to start taking things like
game theory into account. You have to start bluffing and
semi-bluffing occasionally. Deception becomes more important.
(We also have a section explaining Texas holdem and game
theory.)

Raising with your good hands and folding your bad hands is
good enough to win when you’re playing novices, but when you’re
dealing with advanced players, you need a more multi-dimensional
approach.

Cheats, Cheaters, and Cheating

We don’t recommend cheating at Texas holdem. It’s an easy
enough game to beat if you play honestly—if you’re willing to do
the work of becoming an expert player. And the risk-reward ratio
for cheaters is awful.

In fact, we’re firmly convinced that cheating at gambling is
a bad idea for lots of reasons. Karma is one of the significant
ones.

If you don’t want to get cheated, don’t try to cheat other
players. Being a good player is more fun and more satisfying,
anyway.

And there’s not much risk involved in becoming an expert
player.

Bluffing and Semi-Bluffing

Poker Texas Holdem Strategy

New players think that bluffing is a more important part of
Texas holdem strategy than it actually is. There are several
things to keep in mind about bluffing. Most of them just flat
out have to do with the math.

Let’s look at an example of a situation where you might want
to bluff:

The first player to act bets. The 2nd player to act raises.
Player 3 re-raises. A couple of players fold, so now it’s your
turn to bet. (This is preflop.)

Trying to bluff these 3 players doesn’t make a lot of sense
from a mathematical standpoint. They’ve all indicated a strong
hand—sure, one of them might be bluffing, but all 3 of them?

Unlikely.

After all, the good cards have to be somewhere.

Let’s look at another situation. You’re the last person to
act before the blinds, and everyone has checked. (Again, this is
preflop.)

You fire off a raise.

But you don’t have good cards. You’re just hoping that
everyone else has weak cards.

What are the odds that the player in the small blind, the
player in the big blind, and all the other players who checked
have weaker hands than you do? And even then, what are the odds
that if they all have weaker hands that they’re all going to
fold? Or that some of them won’t improve?

You then have to compare those odds with how much you’re
going to get paid off if they do all fold. There would have to
be a lot of money in the pot.

Let’s say you assume that each of these 4 players at the
table have a 50% chance of folding in the face of your raise.
50% X 50% X 50% X 50% = 6.25%. That’s the probability that
they’ll all fold in the face of your raise. That’s about 15 to
1.

So to make that a profitable bluff, you’d need to have at
least 15 units in the pot for every unit you bet. With that much
money in the pot, even some of the less sophisticated players
are going to stay in just in case their longshot comes through
for them.

Semi-bluffing, on the other hand, often makes a lot more
sense. This is when you bet and/or raise even though you
probably don’t have the best hand, but you still have a chance
at drawing to the best hand.

An example of this is when you have 4 cards to a flush on the
flop. You figure your opponent has a high pair. He’s the
favorite to win, but when you add together the chance that
you’ll outdraw him with the chance that he’ll fold in the face
of your bet/raise, you have a positive expectation situation.

You have a 33% chance of hitting your flush (roughly). But
suppose you also have a 30% chance of him folding. You don’t
need a lot of money in the pot to make that a bet worth making.

We have an entire page devoted to the subject of bluffing and
semi-bluffing, too.

Cash Game Strategy

Earlier we mentioned that there’s a difference between
tournament strategy and cash game strategy. We want to reiterate
that here and point you toward that section of our site.

Your goal when playing in cash games is to maximize the
amount of money you win per hour. That might seem obvious, but
when you’re mapping out a specific strategy for a specific game,
you need to start with what winning looks like. In cash games,
it means maximizing the amount won on average per hour.

Contrast this with strategy during a tournament. Your goal
isn’t to maximize the number of chips you win per hour. Your
goal is to maximize your return on investment on the entry fee.
The chips have no real value. Another way to look at it is to
say that the value of the chips varies based on where you are in
the tournament.

If you’re “on the bubble”, which means that almost everyone
has been eliminated except for the players who are going to land
in the money, a short stack of chips might be “worth” a lot more
than your starting stack of chips.

This has interesting implications for your playing strategy.

Coaches, Coaching, Trainers, and Training – Where to Get
Texas Holdem Lessons

We’re not convinced that everyone needs a poker coach.
Coaching is probably not a bad idea if you’re serious about your
game, though. The distinction between a Texas holdem coach and a
trainer is probably not great—we don’t know of any training that
differs in any significant way from coaching. In fact, we’re
confident in saying that the two words are synonymous in this
context.

Where to get Texas holdem lessons?

We’re not convinced that you need them, but if you’re looking
for a poker coach who gives lessons, we suggest taking a look at
some of the more reputable poker forums online. Get to know some
of the players there, develop some relationships, and when you
start to get comfortable with some of these folks, ask someone
for a recommendation.

We offer more observations and tips about finding poker
coaches and lessons on a page devoted specifically to that
topic.

When to Fold in Texas Holdem

Really you can ask multiple questions about betting options
in Texas holdem:

• When should you fold?
• When should you bet?
• When should you call?
• When should you check?
• When should you raise?
• When should you bluff?

None of these questions, including “when should you fold”,
have definitive answers. Some situations are clear folds—if
you’re out of position before the flop and you have 27 offsuit,
you should probably fold. If you’re in late position facing lots
of callers, and you have pocket aces, you should almost
certainly raise.

Texas Holdem Poker Strategy For Beginners

The goal is to get your money into the middle of the table
when it’s a positive expectation move to do so.

The other goal is to avoid putting money into the pot when
it’s a negative expectation move to do so.

We go into a lot more detail about when to fold in Texas
holdem on our main page.

Conclusion

Texas holdem is a lot of fun. Luck’s a big factor, but Texas
holdem strategy is the difference between long term winning and
long term losing.

Texas Holdem Poker Strategy And Odds

We’re constantly expanding this section. Entire books have
been written about some of these concepts. We’ve tried to
provide comprehensive explanations of each off these concepts,
but we might have left out a detail here or there.

If you see a mistake we’ve made, or if you think we should
add something to cover the subject more completely, please
contact us and let us know.

If you are looking for tips and advice to immediately fix your Texas Holdem game, you’ve come to the right spot. We provide tips, strategies, and advice on Texas Hold em poker that are designed to make a difference immediately. Having a proper and correct posture and outlook when playing Texas Hold em poker is imperative to one’s long-term success. To take care of one’s profit margins, a player should understand basic, intermediate and advanced Texas Hold em strategy.

Basic Texas Hold em Poker Advice

How To Count Outs – In Texas Holdem, the number of cards that will help a hand improve are known as outs. Find out how identifying and counting outs can help a poker player determine the odds of hitting their hand are, as well as how to determine if a drawing hand is worth chasing.

How to Calculate Pot Odds – This article on holdem strategy goes hand in hand with knowing how to count outs. Pot odds are compared to the odds of hitting a hand. It is paramount to know how to figure out pot odds in determining whether or not you are correct in continuing in the hand.

Intermediate Level Texas Hold em Poker Advice

Once the foundation for Texas Hold em strategy has been laid, players can begin exploring more difficult concepts in poker that are designed to transform a poker player into a winning one. Here, players will learn of specific tactics that will help them turn a profit at the poker tables.

Pot Control – Establishing and maintaining control of the pot is one of the best ways to drive profits at the holdem tables. Find out how to control the pot and dictate the pace of the Texas Holdem hand.

Semi Bluff – Players think they have to bluff when playing poker. While this is true, the semi-bluff is a far safer form of bluffing, as players are bluffing in that they do not have a made hand, yet they are drawing to what can potentially become the best hand. Learn all about semi bluffing profitably in poker.

Texas Holdem Playing Styles – We provide a detailed look at the various ways to play Texas Holdem poker by looking at the different playing styles and poker strategies one can employ at the poker table. There’s no one correct way to play and poker players must adjust their game and strategy to suit the situation and table conditions.

Playing Texas Holdem from position – We look at playing from position and examine the concepts of relative and absolute position, as well as discuss the various strategies that should be employed from each position in Texas Hold em poker.

Blind Stealing – Everything you wanted to know about stealing blinds in Texas Holdem Poker, but were afraid to ask is discussed in detail in this article about stealing the blinds. Find out how and when to steal blinds, as well as what to do if someone attacks your blinds.

Advanced Texas Hold em Poker Advice

Thinking like a pro – When playing poker with the pros, it is important to understand how they think and view the game of holdem. Moreover, it is safe to assume that the pros are such because they are good at the game. Thus, thinking like they do in poker can assist the players in viewing the game of Texas Hold em properly and profitably.

Multi Tabling – Our guide to multi-tabling in online poker discusses the pros and cons of playing more than one table at a time, as well as discusses tips and tricks to playing multi-table Texas Holdem poker. Whether you are a seasoned multi-tabling vet or considering playing more than one poker table at a time, this is a must read.

Bankroll Management – Use this as your online guide to managing your poker bankroll. Here, we discuss common bankroll mistakes, and tips to improve your bankroll management skills.

Poker and Life

David ‘Orange’ Yee looks at playing poker online and travel in his excellent two part guide. In the first part of the guide he access these benefits of playing poker and travelling as a pro poker player. Then in his second guide he looks at what you need while travelling and where you should consider going.

David ‘Orange87’ Yee’s Poker Strategy

In this section we will present the poker musings of online professional David ‘Orange’ Yee who approaches poker in a highly technical, logical, and analytical fashion. David will present some common poker situations and analyze them to a degree of a poker pro.

• In poker we tend to play multi-way pots in similar fashion. After-all, how many ways can we play the pot? This guide looks at an Alternative Way to Playing Draws Out of Position On the Flop in Multi-Way Pots. We hope this will get you thinking about your game in a more ‘outside the box manner’ as it is the main theme of the poker strategy on this site.

• Deep stacked poker is amazing to play, especially in a world where 100bb poker is becoming somewhat standard. When playing with 200bbs+ each decision becomes less standard and mistakes are punished more severely. With more money at risk, those who adapt to deep NLHE better will yield greater returns versus those who succumb to pressure whilst holding a big stack. Read Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 of David’s thoughts on Deep-stack No Limit Holdem play.

• There are times in poker where we take what we call a ‘standard’ line in common situations. Although in poker no two hands are ever the same, there are quite a number of hands that play out in similar fashion. We play all these hands as ‘standard’, maybe without even realising it. It is probably that our opponent does the exact same too. Okay, let’s step back and consider some changes. One important aspect to consider is gaining more value by under representing our hand. There are multiple complementary benefits to this (apart from the extra value) including the advantage of being a non-standard player and always have your opponent in the lurch about what you are going to do.

• Going with the theme of thinking outside the box, let’s look at our calling range on the flop (in position). Say we flop a monster draw in and our opponent bets. Why do we always raise? Or if we ask someone they say ‘oh that’s standard raise’! In this article Opening Your Flat Calling Range in Position with Stronger Draws we look at the advantages of just calling on the flop. Not only does it pose advantages in this initial hand but it also benefits us the next time our opponent bets into us on a draw heavy flop.

• There comes a time in a poker players career that he/she considers coaching or getting help to improve their game. Even the top poker players get some form of coaching, or at least spend a lot of time discussing and analyzing hands with like-minded players – after-all two heads are better than one. Part one of a two part series is a detailed discussion on poker coaching and includes everything you need to know before delving into the world of poker training. Part two of the series looks further into poker coaching and poses the question :- Am I ready for a Poker Coach?

• Every aspiring poker player wants more and more information. They want to learn all they can as fast as they can! Sometimes forking out for a training site subscription or a private poker coach is not always an option so players search the internet for any worthy sources where they can add to their current knowledge base. In this article; What External Resources to Improve As a Poker Player? we look at the best resources from across the web where you can comfortable find invaluable information for free. The Internet proves as a better medium for learning poker strategy as outdated ideas and concepts can be updated easily opposed to hard copies for poker books.

Texas Hold em Poker Tournament Advice

In our Introduction to Online Poker Tournament Strategy article, we look at the different poker strategies involved in the various stages of an online Texas Holdem Poker tournament. Here, the tournament poker player will learn about the proper strategy to employ across the various stages of a MTT.

Texas Hold em Tips & Advice for New Poker Players

Learning Texas Holdem Poker Strategy

So many poker shows on television glorify the game of Texas Hold em. We see young people gambling hundred of thousands of dollars every day at internet poker sites. With all the media attention poker has received in the last few years, it has been promoted to become a get rich quick scheme – but this just is not true. There are people who have become millionaires from playing poker, but these people have worked hard for their money. It is said that poker is the hardest way to make an easy living. What this means is you can make millions a year off poker but you also have to work hard for it.

New Player Tip #1 – Play, play, play!

When learning the game, you should try to play as many hands as possible. Many new players will spend too much time reading and not enough time playing. This is not saying that you should not be reading strategy articles; in fact, it is recommended to read Texas Hold em strategy to improve your game. As soon as you learn a new poker concept, you have to go and experiment with it at the Texas Hold em tables. It is no good knowing everything in theory but not knowing how to apply it in real Texas Holdem games; top online pros will play over one million hands a year. This should definitely be a sign that playing as many hands as possible will help you keep improving.

New Player Tip #2 – Always practice good bankroll management

One of the first concepts a new player should grasp when it comes to Texas hold em is bankroll management. A way to demonstrate this point is to think, if you have your whole bankroll on one table and you get unlucky on the turn of a card you lose everything you have to play with meaning you cannot play poker anymore. There are many articles that will go into bankroll management in much more details but for no limit Texas holdem a good place to start is never play anymore than 5% of your bankroll at any one table. This will protect you from the run of bad variance you are likely to have if you play a lot of poker.

Managing NL Texas Hold em Bankroll for Cash Games

This bankroll method is the first most players will learn when starting to play Texas hold em Poker. All you have to do is keep at least 2000 big blinds for the blind level you want to play. So using a basic example if you want to play at $0.05/$0.1 you would need at least $200 dollars in your bankroll. If you are very comfortable at a certain level and you are confident you can outplay to competition you may be able to drop this rule to 1500-2000 big blinds but as you start to move up above $0.25/$0.5 it would be advisable to keep at least 2000 big blinds in your account and then move down a level if you drop below this.

Strategy Of Texas Hold'em Poker

Managing a Poker Bankroll Using the Chris Ferguson Method

Strategy In Texas Holdem Poker

For those of you that don’t know, Chris Ferguson is a renowned pro with widespread success throughout the poker world. Using the bankroll method that will be explained in this section of the article Chris managed to successfully turn $1 into $20000. The idea of the method is to always have 20 buy-ins at the level you are playing in a cash game. However Chris didn’t buy in for the full amount he bought in for half the maximum buy in, so at NL 10 he bought in for 5$ and made sure he had $100 in his account at all times. When you drop below 20 buy-ins you must move down your limits so you have the 20 buy-ins needed at your limit. This bankroll method means that you will be switching between limits a lot more often than the classic bankroll method so only use this method if you feel you will be confident with frequent limit shifts.

Every pro at some point in his career experienced bad variance but the difference between a pro and an amateur player is that he has managed his bankroll so he can ride out the bad variance and wait for the upswing afterward. Which ever method you choose make sure you stick to it, and if you do there is no reason why you will ever have to deposit more money in poker again.

Advanced Poker Strategy Texas Holdem