03Aug

A Preflop Strategy

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This is a Preflop Strategy for Full Ring and 6-Max No Limit Texas Hold’em cash games.

It is a modern strategy based mainly on the aggressive and fairly competent online low to midstakes game 2010.

Watch out for many poker books and sites with a couple of years old guidance as following those guidelines makes you a losing player in 2013 – even books by the some of the greatest players!

This preflop strategy is mainly based on how the greatest winners in a database with over 100 000 players are playing, poker training videos, 10 years of experience and Harrington on Online Cash Games; 6-Max No-Limit Hold ’em

11Jul

Introduction to Texas Holdem

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This is an introduction to the basics of No-limit Texas Holdem.

Texas Holdem can be learned in a few minutes and you can be playing ok  with just a few hours of practice.

But as the saying goes, a a minute to learn, a lifetime to master. Which is part of the fascination so many people around the world share for this beautiful game.

This is the structure for Texas Holdem poker:

  1. Depending on the limit and betting structure, players will place something called blinds. These bets are mandatory and are mad so there is an initial amount to get things started. There is a small blind and a big blind. The big blind is twice as big as the small blind.
  2. The deck is a standard 52 cards deck.
  3. Each player is dealt two private cards face down. These are called your hole cards or pocket cards.
  4. There is a round of betting starting with the player to the left of the blinds. This is the preflop betting round. Like most games of poker, players can call, raise, or fold.
  5. After the betting round ends, the dealer discards the top card of the deck. This is called a burn card. This is done to prevent cheating.
  6. The dealer then deals the next three cards face up on the table. This is called the flop. These are communal cards that anyone can use in combination with their two pocket cards to form a poker hand.
  7. The player to the left of the dealer starts another betting round.
  8. After the betting concludes, the dealer burns again then flips another communal card onto the table. This is called the turn.
  9. The player to the left of the dealer begins another round of betting. In many types of games (but not in No-limit games) the bet size doubles here.
  10. Again, the dealer burns a card and places a final card face up on the table. This is called the river. Players can now use any of the five cards on the table in any combination with  the two cards in their pocket to form a five card poker hand.
  11. There is one final round of betting starting with the player to the left of the dealer.
  12. After that, there is a showdown. All of the players who haven’t folded show their hands. This begins with the player to the left of the last player to call.
  13. The player who shows the best hand wins. Sometimes players with the same hand split the pot.

All Online poker rooms offer the possibility to play for play money so you may practice for free until you are ready to move up to the fun at real money tables.

There are many good choices, but we strongly recommend Full Tilt which has huge amounts of players and the best software in the industry. When you are ready to start gambling for real money, you can begin with depositing as little as $10.

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11Jul

How to win at poker

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Most players who play poker are unfortunately losing money (about 95 %).
To become a winning player you have to make some effort to improve your game.
This article describes some of the main elements of winning poker.

Image: Maggie Smith / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

  • Play worse players
  • Use odds to your advantage
  • Have Rakeback deals
  • Avoid mistakes and take advantage of your opponent’s
  • Play a lot (or be lucky)
  • Be disciplined!

Play worse players

This may seem obvious, but many players underestimate the importance of this. Unless you are playing for fun or for temporary learning, you should always strive to play players who are worse than yourself.

If you play with players who are equally or more skilled than your are, you will loose in the long run. Even if you play players who are slightly worse than you, you might be losing – because of the rake that you play to the poker room.

If you are playing at a table and you can’t identify at least one or two persons who are playing significantly worse than you, you should normally move to another table or take a break.

See our advanced article on Table Selection for more info on how to select the good tables.

Use odds to your advantage

Poker is at it’s core a game of odds and probabilities. It is  of course a lot of other things also – and you need a lot of people- and analytical skills to estimate what the odds and probabilities are in a given situation.

But you need to understand (either intuitively or analytically) if the odds for something to happen is favorable compared to the  probability that it will happen.

Read the article on Odds and Outs for more information on how to use Odds to your advantage.

Use rakeback deals

The rake is the fee poker rooms are charging for the privilege to play there. Rakeback is a percentage of that fee that is paid back to the players, usually about 30 % of the rake.

In order to get rakeback you need to sign up with a partner (affiliate) to the poker rooms, and not with the poker room directly. Many sites are offering rakeback, and this is one of them.

Rakeback might not be necessary to be a winning poker player – but it sure makes it a whole lot easier.

Avoid mistakes and take advantage of opponent’s

Essentially you gain something in poker when an opponent is making a mistake and you lose something when you make a mistake  – over the long run.

Example:

You are drawing to a flush and the pot is $30 on the turn. Opponent bets $5. You call and on the river you complete your flush. Opponent check, you bet $20 and he calls.

In this example opponent made a mistake (at least if he had reason to believe you might be on a flush draw) by betting to small and giving you correct odds to call.

In this example you got lucky and completed your flush which you will only do about 18 % of the time. But over the long run you will gain by the opponent’s mistake, and he will lose.

So essentially  poker is about trying to make as few mistakes as possible and take advantage of opponents mistakes.

But since poker is so complex (which makes it very interesting) no one plays without mistakes, not even the world-class players!

Play a lot (or be lucky)

Over the long run the best players will always earn money.

But in the short run anyone can lose, no matter how much better than the opponents they are.

Most beginners (and many experienced players) underestimate how much you need to play for skill to significantly factor out luck.

There is nothing strange or uncommon for a highly profitable player to have a losing streak of 10 000 hands.

In live games that translates to about 300 hours.

So don’t become to cocky just because you have won the last three sessions of you local home game!

Disappointed? Well, so am I. This is the main reason why I mostly play live games for fun. But when you play online – if you play multiple tables I think it is ok.

If you for example play three 6-max tables you can manage 10 000 hands in about 30 hours.

See Realistic Win rates 2010 for more info.

Be disciplined

Ah, but I just want to have fun!

Sorry, I believe there are few winning players at  decent levels who do not have a lot of discipline – at least in some areas.

You need discipline to:

  • Avoid playing poorly when you lose a lot (tilt)
  • Quit playing when you are playing poorly
  • Practice poker – not just play
  • Analyze poker
  • Avoid making a call when you know you don’t have the odds for it
  • Not play at higher levels than your bankroll admits
  • If you’re a professional – sometimes play when you are fed up with it