July 2008
2 posts
Texas Holdem Tip #15 - Texas Holdem Is Not Fair
Recently I was playing texas holdem and faced a situation that is not uncommon to frequent players. I was at a table with aggressive opponents. I sat on the button and had pocket aces. Several players called to me and a made a 4BB raise. All but two opponents folded.
The flop was a rainbow with 3 7 Q. I made a pot sized bet and one opponent folded while the other called. The turn brought an...
Texas Holdem Tip #14 - Call From The Small Blind
There are time when you do not have to have a premium hand to make a solid bet. One such instance that occurs frequently is when you are sitting in the small blind with several players limping into the pot.
Suppose you are playing $1/$2 Texas Holdem from the small blind position with a weak hand and 4 limpers in front of you. At that moment there is $11 in the pot and you only have to bet $1 to...
June 2008
4 posts
Texas Holdem Tip #13 - Think Flexibly.
This Texas Holdem Tip deals a little bit with the psychology of the game. Sometimes a player will go “on tilt” after becoming frustrated. They may not have been getting any playable cards for several hands. Or perhaps they have just had what they feel is a “bad beat”. Once agitated, they begin to make bad poker decisions. Often after a bad beat, a player will try to win it...
Texas Holdem Tip #12 - Play Premium Hands.
Today’s Texas Holdem Tip comes courtesy of a little research by pokerroom.com. They analyzed millions of real money hands and calculated the expected value (EV) of each of the 169 possible starting hands. The following hands are the only ones with a positive expected value.
Pairs - AA through 66
Suited - AK-A3, KQ-K8, QJ-Q9, JT-J9, and T9
Unsuited - AK-AT, KQ-KT, QJ
This is only 39 of...
Texas Holdem Tip #11 - Pot Commit Your Opponent
This is an extension of the previous texas holdem tip to force your opponent to make a decision. It is an aggressive strategy with a strong payoff if you play it well.
Your chips are very precious. You want to make your chip stack grow or, at least not lose the ones that you have. When stacks get small (ie. less that 5x BB), players are likely to go all in with any two reasonable cards. This...
Texas Holdem Tip #10 - Force A Decision With Your...
Your bets not only convey information about your hand, but also affect the decision making process of your opponents. For example, if the pot sits at $20 and you make a $2 bet it is very easy for a wide variety of hands to call. If you bet $20 in the same situation, many opponents will assume that you have a strong hand and fold. By increasing your bet, the “pain threshhold” rises for...
April 2008
1 post
Texas Holdem Tip #9 - Don't Assume. Observe.
We are surrounded with people in our lives that do the things we do and think the way we think. Our common interests and beliefs are the foundation for our friendships. We find support for our way of thinking from our close circle of family and friends. So, what does this have to do with winning poker? One of the great fallacies in life is that we tend to assume that others generally think the...
March 2008
4 posts
Texas Holdem Tip #8 - Calculate Pot Odds And More...
“You’ve got to know when to hold’em. Know when to fold’em.” But how? Unless you are bluffing, you make a bet when the pot odds are less than your actual probability of winning. This seems complicated, but it is just some simple math to figure it out. This is an extension of our previous texas holdem tip on knowing the odds and is especially important when you are...
Texas Holdem Tip #7 - How To Kill Bullies
Most poker players approach the game with more attitude than intelligence. They gamble wrecklessly, bluff too much, and always seem to be putting a lot of chips at risk. We love intelligent aggressive play, but this texas holdem tip is about how to kill these bullies. We are going to characterize players in two dimensions: tight/loose and aggressive/passive. Tight players play only the best hands...
Texas Holdem Tip #6 - Position Can Be Negated
This texas holdem tip comes as a convergence from a number of poker hands that I have been analyzing recently. Many books will talk about the power of betting position in texas holdem. Basically it comes down to this … the last person to bet has the advantage of seeing what all the other players do before making a decision and putting your chips at risk. The later you are, the better your...
Texas Holdem Tip #5 - Professionals Practice. Why...
They say that “practice makes perfect.” That’s a lie. Only perfect practice makes perfect. Most skills that we learn (like playing solid texas holdem) are developed through repetition. We perform an action over and over improving until we can “do it in our sleep” without thinking about it. That is the beauty of practice and the problem with it. At some point, our...
February 2008
4 posts
Texas Holdem Tip #4 - Winning Players Are...
A single hand of texas holdem may be won in only two ways: you either have the best cards or you get everyone else to fold. Today we are going to explore getting other players to fold. Here is the important, but simple truth. You fold when you *believe* that the odds of winning do not justify the bet required or if you are uncomfortable betting “that much” on this hand. Generally...
Texas Holdem Tip #3 - Poker Is A Game Of Patience
Just about every poker player loves to be in the middle of the action. This is one of the things that we love about the game and one of the biggest causes of losing poker. Let me explain … When you are playing with 9 other players, your chance of winning any hand is 1 out of 10. Let me repeat that. Your odds of winning any random hand at a full table is 10%. If you play every hand, you will...
Texas Holdem Tip #2 - Know Your Odds
Here is a great texas holdem tip … know your odds. Have you ever wondered how you could have gotten beat in a particular hand? Or whether a beat was *really* a bad beat or a bad play? Knowing the odds in these situations is very helpful. Poker Stove is a wonderful texas holdem odds calculator that lets you play with the starting hands and determine the odds of winning. It is something that...
Texas Holdem Tip #1 - Tips Won't Work Unless . . .
Beginning poker players are constantly looking for new texas holdem tips in hopes that they will find the *one* thing that will take their winnings over the top. Unless you are at the top of the texas holdem world, it is silly to think that one tip will take you where you want to go. All of the top poker professionals play systematically. Their style of play may look different ranging from the...