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Texas Hold'em Basics As a beginner there are three basic concepts you need to grasp to play this game: think of them as "The Three Ps" concept.
First off: if you have no patience, poker is the wrong game for you. An impatient player soon becomes a broke player! There can be long periods where you don't get any playable cards, or the nature of the game means you don't have an opportunity to make a move and you simply have to wait - either you get used to that or you get used to losing money... The second concept is closely related to the first - don't play weak hands! For a list of the twenty best starting hands in hold'em refer to the statistics section of the Nuts Poker Academy. Wait for a playable hand - and if you're the kind of person who considers 8-3 to be a playable hand, kiss your money goodbye - or alternatively give us a call, we'd love to play against you... Position 1. "Position is power". Position is simply where you are sitting in relation to the dealer's button. Your position at the table is a huge factor; the strength of your position comes from the fact that the betting goes in a clockwise fashion. In a favourable (i.e. late) position you get to see how other players react to the action and whether they fold, bet, or call before you do. This information is valuable and the more you have of it the better informed your decision will be when you come to play your hand. 2. Each particular position has its own strengths or weaknesses:
If you aren't familiar with the above terms (small blind, button, under the gun), visit our Pokerspeak page. The importance of your position depends on many factors; position plays a more important role in no-limit hold'em than in limit hold'em, but it is always better to be in a late position. It's important to identify what hands are generally playable in all positions - let's run through a couple of examples. Scenario #1 Let's say you're under the gun with Q-10 off-suit and decide to limp (just call) into the pot. The player to bet after you raises, and everyone except you folds - what do you do now? There's a good chance that the player has a better hand than you - any ace, king, or pocket pair is a statistical favourite to beat your hand, and the raise before the flop indicates the likelihood that your opponent has a hand at least as good as this. You can either fold or play the hand as a probable underdog, with the added disadvantage that your position is bad as you will have to act before your opponent for the rest of the hand. Scenario #2 Imagine you have the same hand, Q-10 off-suit, but your position is on the dealer button and everyone after the big blind folds to you. One option would be to fold and let the blinds fight it out; alternatively you could simply call and hope to see a favourable flop. Your position, however, gives you a third option: you could raise in an attempt to steal the blinds. Even if your raise is called you still have the advantage of acting last in the subsequent betting rounds. In this case you would be playing (raising) the hand because of your position and not because of your cards, which are poor - many players will tell you that your position is much more important than your cards. 3. Another notable factor is that position goes hand-in-hand with knowing the players directly around you. For example, an aggressive player to the immediate right of a tight player usually results in the tight player's blinds being frequently stolen. 4. Being in late position with a good hand is preferable to being in an early position with a good hand. Early-position raisers are assumed to have a good hand and it tends to scare players away. A pre-flop raise in early position gives more players the option of folding because they haven't yet committed any chips to a pot which has probably not yet reached any considerable size. In late position other players will usually have already invested some chips, thus building the pot, and may be more willing to call your raise. Such a scenario allows you to manipulate the pot size, making it more attractive for other players with weaker hands to call in the later betting rounds. When to bet By making a bet you are sending one of two messages to your opponents: a) "I have the best hand and I'll wager money on it!" or Generally, players are supposed to bet when they have a good hand, while players who don't have good hands are supposed to fold. Of course, if poker was really as simple as that, it wouldn't be poker and you wouldn't be reading this. Good players develop deceptive strategies to disguise their hands, but this is something you learn to do with time and isn't something you should attempt immediately; initially your betting strategy should be built upon this simple idea, but you must learn when to deviate from it by betting in situations where you otherwise wouldn't. Here are some moves you should learn to make occasionally to improve your game: Blind-stealing When you are on the dealer button and only you and the blinds are involved in the hand you can sometimes raise with any two cards to force the others to fold, if they hold weak hands, thereby "stealing the blinds". If you were to simply call you would give your opponents the option of checking and seeing the flop cheaply. This tactic helps to keep you afloat, evening out the blinds you yourself lose in the course of the game; it's more rewarding when the blinds are high, but don't overdo it or your opponents will quickly realise what you're up to. The steal-raise This is similar to blind-stealing: if you are last to act and all players have checked to you, indicating weakness, you can bet to either take down the pot, or at least drive some of the players out of the hand. If you try this too often you'll find yourself being trapped by a check-raise - players will deliberately check to you to induce a bet, which they will then raise. A good opportunity to use this tactic is when you have an excellent drawing hand, such as a nut flush draw. If you are called and hit your hand, you win a larger pot; if not, you may be able to check in the hope that a later card will make your hand. The check-raise Check-raising is most often used when you have a good hand and deliberately check to your opponent, with the intention of tempting them to bet, so that you can then raise their bet. Your intention is to lure them into a false sense of security so that you can raise them and thus increase the pot - if they already have thrown a lot of chips into the pot they may be reluctant to give up, allowing you to extract even more from them. The opener This is a risky move, often employed as a bluff, when the player who is first to act in the betting round makes a substantial bet. This will usually cause a number of players to fold, but the ones remaining will either be equally aggressive or genuinely have a good hand. This is also known as betting for information and the tactic is best used against as few players as possible in a hand. The squeeze Squeezing is generally used in a short-handed game; it involves betting when you have a good hand, but suspect one or more of your opponents may be drawing to a hand which would then beat yours. For example: you play A-K and the flop comes Ah-7h-2s, giving you top pair with top kicker. However, your opponent seems to be drawing to a flush, so you bet a substantial amount to make the option of calling unattractive, giving him/her unfavourable pot odds, as he/she is statistically not a favourite to make their draw. (See below for details about odds). Outs & odds Probability plays an important role in Texas Hold'em, with players calculating odds to determine their actions. The chances of completing a flush or a straight, the probability of getting an overcard, the percentage of times you're going to flop a set to improve your pocket pair: see the Statistics section for some examples of typical situations. Knowledge of these statistics will greatly improve your game and help you decide in difficult situations whether to fold, raise or call. Outs An "out" is the term poker players use for a card which will probably improve your hand to a winning one. Calculating your outs enables you to make an informed decision as to whether you have a reasonable chance of beating your opponent's hand. There are simple formulas for calculating your outs on both the turn and the river, as follows: After the flop, the chances of hitting the cards you need are: outs x 4 = percentage chance. After the turn, the chances of hitting the cards you need are: (outs x 2) + 1 = percentage chance. Example: you hold A-10 of hearts, the flop comes Ks, 8h, 5h. One opponent bets 5000, everyone folds around to you - it looks like your opponent has made a pair of kings and wants to take the pot down right there. To beat him you need either an ace or a heart: there are three more aces in the deck and nine more hearts, giving you 12 "outs" - a 48% chance of hitting on the turn and a 25% chance of hitting on the river.
Pot Odds Pot odds are simply the ratio you calculate when analyzing the current size of the pot compared to the amount you will have to invest if you call a bet. For example: if the pot contains 500 chips and you have to call a bet of 50 to see the next card, you are being offered pot odds of 10 to 1 on your money. Pot odds are linked to outs - a good rule of thumb is that if the pot odds correspond to your outs, you should always call, because this would be a profitable play in the long run. In the case of the above example that would mean you would need only a 10% chance of hitting the cards you need to call the bet. These basic concepts are supplemented by other, more advanced concepts - bet odds, implied odds, reverse implied odds... but let's not go down that road at this point! If you apply the basic concepts of outs and pot odds when playing poker you will have laid a solid foundation for your game - the more advanced concepts can follow afterwards, as you progress. One final point: you will see many players making bad calls in near-hopeless situations, simply because they have already invested so much money in the pot that they feel they can no longer pull out of the hand - this is a big mistake. Any money in the pot is dead money - it no longer belongs to you, so forget it when it comes to calculating your chances. Make each decision on the basis of the available information; if the cards, the pot odds and the outs are telling you you're beaten, then fold!
Bluffing Poker is a game of deception and misinformation - if you can make your opponents believe you have a completely different hand to what you actually hold, you're on the road to success. A major element of this is bluffing, particularly in no-limit games. A bluff is a bet with a weak hand, to represent a strong hand, in the hope that your opponent(s) will fold. "If you can't bluff, you can't win!" is an old poker saying - it's perfectly true, for the simple reason that you can't rely on getting good cards and are therefore occasionally forced into playing bad cards. However, bluffing is not something you should do frequently, otherwise you'll quickly find yourself devoid of chips. So, how do you know when and how you should bluff? The answer to this question is the same as the answer to almost every poker-related question: "It depends...". There are no hard and fast rules when it comes to bluffing, it's something you have to develop an instinct for as you gain experience, but listed below are some (very) general tips which may help you decide when you should attempt a bluff. a) When there are very few players in the hand. It's better to try to bluff two players than three - and much better still to try it against only one opponent. The fewer the hands out there, the more likely are the chances that nobody has anything much and will therefore fold to a bet. Of course, players will be aware of this and less likely to believe a bluff - you may have to bluff over several betting rounds to make it look convincing, which becomes very expensive if your bluff doesn't work... b) When your opponents are tight. Observe your opponents and pick targets who tend to fold more easily. When you find such a suitable situation put out a bet to see how your opponent reacts. He/she may fold immediately, but if a very tight player calls you can be pretty sure he has something worth playing and there's no point in wasting any further money on a bluff. c) On the river. When the river card falls, everyone knows how strong their own hand is. If it looks like your opponent was on a draw which missed, he/she will be very likely to fold to a bet, as it doesn't make sense to call with nothing. In such cases it's sometimes a good idea to attempt a semi-bluff with a weak hand, like ace-high or bottom pair; some players will fold, some will even call with nothing just because of the pot odds. d) You're in late position and everyone else has checked. This is a very common bluff and therefore to be attempted with caution. If your opponents really have nothing some of them may well fold, but equally they're likely to be aware of what you're trying to do. e) You bet pre-flop and missed. Your opponents don't know that you missed the flop; if they themselves missed, a second (continuation) bet from you represents strength. Evaluate the flop before attempting this and always consider your position and the actions of your opponents. f) Your opponents fear you. If you've been outplaying opponents, or they have seen you winning a lot of hands with good cards, a "here we go again" mentality can creep into their play, making it more likely that they'll fold to your bluffs if you play them the way you played your winning hands. g) After an uncoordinated flop. After a rainbow flop of 2, 6, 9, for example, not many players will have a hand; some weaker players will automatically fold to a bet in this situation. h) You're on the button and everyone but the blinds have folded pre-flop. A bluff here can sometimes "steal the blinds", but is best attempted when you have tight players to your left. Don't overdo it, because it's entirely possible that at least one of the blinds has actually been dealt a strong hand. If you are called by one of the blinds there's always the chance of your bluff turning into a deceptively good hand with a lucky flop. i) When there is a pair on the board. By bluffing here you can represent a strong hand such as three of a kind or a full house, but be very wary if you are called, as your opponent may well have the hand you are trying to represent. Always bear in mind that these are all common reasons to bluff and any good player will be aware of them. Bluffs will fail a lot of the time, but when they do work you pick up chips for nothing; don't do it so often that they never work and always be aware of the opponents you're up against when considering whether to attempt a bluff. |
