No Limit - Rules of No Limit Texas Holdem

In a No Limit Texas Holdem cash game, the “table stakes” relate to the amount of the small and big blinds. In a $5/$10 game, the small blind put in $5, the big blind put in $10, and those blinds remain equal for the whole game.

Once the blinds are in the pot, two cards are dealt to each player. The first player to act is the one sitting to the left to the big blind. From now on, every player can bet the minimum of the big blind amount and the maximum of his chips. A raise must be at least twice the previous bet. The betting round is complete after each player has folded, called the highest bet, or went all in.

The only thing that’s different from limit Texas Holdem is the betting limit, but as you can guess, it’s a very important difference. The trick is to try to win the big pots since they can get really big.

Going all in – If a player bets more than your whole stack, you can go all in and if you win, you’ll get the relative amount of the pot.

For example, if the pot is $50, one player bets $50, another player calls, and you’ve got only $20, you can go all in. If you win, you will get $110 ($50 from the original pot and three times $20). The better hand from the other two players wins $60. This $60 is called the side pot.

Probability and Statistics - hand match ups

I’ll present few examples of hands and the odds of each hand of winning, try to guess what the chances of winning are before looking at the numbers:

1. Big pair - A pair of aces against Jack ten suited, (As, Ah and JTd)
The chances now are: .....78% and 22%
The flop is: Ace of diamond, Queen of spades and 8 of diamonds
The chances now are: .....60% and 40%
The turn is: 2 clubs
The chances now are: .....70% and 30%

2. Small pair - A pair of five against Ace queen suited, (5h, 5d and AQc)
The chances now are: .....51% and 49%
The flop is: 8 of spade, 8 of clubs and 4 of spades
The chances now are: .....69% and 31%
The turn is: queen of diamonds
The chances now are: .....5% and 95%

3. The power of domination – Ace King versus Ace Jack, (Ah Ks and AsJc)
The chances now are: .....71% and 24% tie 5%
The flop is: Ace of diamond, Ten of diamond and 5 of clubs
The chances now are: .....87% and 13%
The turn is: 9 clubs
The chances now are: .....93% and 7%

4. The power of suitness – Ace Jack versus 87 suited and unsuited, (AcJd, 8s 7h or 87s)
The chances now are: .....62% and 38% and if it was suited 58% and 42%
The flop is: Jack of clubs, 6 and 5 of spades
The chances now are: .....63% and 37% and if it was suited 44% and 56%
The turn is: 8 diamonds
The chances now are: .....70% and 30% and if it was suited 55% and 45%

5. Best hand versus worst hand – a pair of aces versus 72, (Ad, As and 7h, 2c)
The chances now are: .....87% and 13%
The flop is: ten and 9 of spades and 2 of diamonds
The chances now are: .....80% and 20%
The turn is: queen of diamonds
The chances now are: 2 seconds pause 89% and 11%

Probability and Statistics - Advanced Pot Odds Calculations

We have just learned how to calculate the pot odds in order to decide whether to call a bet, but sometimes you must consider other factors. For example:
Implied odds – if the player on your right bets and has more money in his stack and you think that if you get your winning card he will pay you after the river, then your odds get a little better. If there are more players behind you and you think that some of them will pay but not raise, your odds are better than the regular calculation and you should take that into account.

For example: you hold 5c4c and the table is Ac, Kh, 7h, 3d. The pot is $125. Your opponent bets $25 and you know that if you get your card, he will pay you another $25 on the river. In this case you have a chance to win $175 ($125 + $25 bet now + $25 call after the river) by paying $25 which means your odds are 1 to 8 or 12.5%. You have 8 outs since any 6 or 2 will give you a straight. By Phil Gordon's rule of 2 you have 16%, therefore you should call.

General principles – if you are unsure that once you get your card you’ll have the winning hand (a King high flush for example), and there is a chance that another player is drawing for the nut flush, you should be very careful even if your pot odds seem good.
On the other hand If there is a reasonable chance that the player you’re up against is bluffing, then your pot odds are bigger than they seem because you have a chance to win the pot with a marginal hand or bluff him out of the pot on the river.

Advanced Strategy - Dominated and Second Best Hands

When deciding whether to play a hand or not, you should consider two main points:

* what are your chances of winning with your hand, and
* how big is the pot going to be

You should definitely play the hands in which you have a good chance of winning a large pot. But you should shy away from hands that will only win a small pot or that will lose a big one. Hands like AJ or AT are usually ’win a little, lose a lot' hands.

If you hold AJ unsuited, an early position player raised preflop, you called, and the flop is AT5, if you are the only one with the ace you probably won’t get any action. On the other hand, if the bettor has AK or AQ, you are probably going to lose a lot of money by paying all the way to the river. Let’s see what your chances are of winning with AJ against AK: the flop is A85, you have only 12% of winning, your opponent has 87% and 1% for a tie.

Any aces or kings with a low or even medium kicker are potential dominated hands if not played carefully. Therefore, folding a preflop raise is probably the best decision.

Advanced Strategy - Slow-Playing in Texas Holdem

Slow-playing means that you have a very strong hand and are playing as if it was mediocre in order to keep players in the game. Checking when nobody bets or just calling when someone else has bet are typical slow-play moves.

However, this move should be played very carefully. Many amateur players tend to use it too often, which gives other players an advantage.

You should slow-play only when:

1. Your hand is very strong and by betting or raising you will drive all or most of the players out of the game.

2. The chance that the next card will give another player a better hand than yours is small.

3. The chance that the next card will give another player the second best hand is relatively high.

4. The pot is relatively small.

Examples: if you hold QQ and the flop is Q73 rainbow, slow-playing would be the best move because it applies to all 4 criteria mentioned before.
If you hold Ah,Qd or even AA and the flop is Ac Qc and 9d you should go ahead and bet because the next card could make someone’s hand better than yours (flush or straight) and you don’t want to give a free card to a player that would have otherwise paid.

Advanced Strategy – position, the first two cards

In Texas Holdem, your position is extremely importance. Since Texas Holdem has four rounds of betting, the position is even more important than in other forms of poker.
The rule is that you should play fewer hands when you are in an early position and more hands in a late position; you should also play the same hand differently in different positions.

The later you play, the more information you can get from the other players and thus the more capable you are of making better decisions.
The decision of whether or not to play a hand has a lot to do with the type of game. In a tight game (when there aren’t many players in the flop) you should play fewer hands than in a loose game. If there are many aggressive players at the table, you should also play fewer hands than if you are playing against many passive players.

In general, in Texas Holdem and in other forms of poker, the greater the competition is, the fewer hands you should play.

Some hands, like AA, don't like many opponents because if there are 4 more players, a pair of Aces has less than a 50% chance of winning, even if the other players have marginal or weak hands. A JT suited or small and medium pairs like a lot of opponents because if the JT hits his card (flush, highest straight, etc.), the player with the second best hand will make him win a big pot.

From these examples, you can see how important is it to know how the other players play. This information will come in very handy when you have to make a decision to fold, call, or raise.
Playing in last position gives you some unique advantages: being able to steal the blinds when nobody has bet, Getting a free card, semi-bluffing and more.

You can find specific guidelines in different books about how to play every hand preflop in Texas Holdem by your position. Some of them are great books by very good writers, like David Sklansky. However, I don’t believe in following guidelines automatically; you should understand the principles behind making a decision based on your position, and then act according to the situation.

I usually tent to play fewer hand than the average at my table and play them more aggressively than the average.
Just remember, there are no automatic guidelines. You should adjust your play to your opponents and the situation.

Poker Psychology - Tells

Even good poker players give a tell once in a while, and an expert player picks that tell. Tells are divided into two groups: voluntary and involuntary. By spotting these tells you can figure out how weak or strong your opponent’s hand is.

Examples:

1. When busy, most of the players tighten up. If a player is eating, talking with a friend, speaking on the phone, or handling his I-pod, when he is in the pot, he is usually strong. If he raises, I’d stay in the pot only if I had a premium hand.

2. Intimidation signs – when a player tries to intimidate, I usually know he has a weak hand. For example: when he shouts: “I raise”, when he leans on the table, bets very quickly, or tosses his chips on the table.

3. Weakness signs – when a player tries to show that he is weak, I usually know he has a great hand. For example: if he puts his chips neatly and quietly into the pot, leans backward, or if he bets slowly.

4. Be careful of the speech – when a player gives a speech like: “a man’s got to do what a man’s got to do”, before he raises or goes all in, I know that he usually has a very strong hand.

5. If a player puts the bigger chips into the pot ($100 for example) when he has 4 chips of $25, he is usually strong. People like their bigger chips and put them on the table when they think they will come back to them.

6. Double-checking for the suit – when a flop has three cards of the same suit, and a player double-checks his cards, he will most likely have one of that suit and is checking to see which card it was.

7. A quick call means a drawing hand most of the time.

To summarize, the rules of “the tells” go as follows: when a player acts weak he is strong and when he act strong he is weak. When spotting these “tells,” try to disappoint your opponent – if he plays weak while holding a great hand, fold or check. If he acts strong while holding a weak hand, go ahead and bet or raise. Just remember two things:
A. You gain the most reliable information about a player by watching his betting patterns rather than poker tells.
B. Experts will trick you with reversed tells if they think you are paying attention.