 So you’ve learned the rules of Texas Holdem and you have got to grips with how the game works; now its time for you to learn some basic poker strategy to get you on the road to winning money from the game. Even though poker is a game that you will never be able to stop progressing in as a player, this article alone may help you to go straight from a losing player to a winning one. As a new player to the game, you will find that you are on the steepest part of the learning curve, and every new piece of information that you pick up will prove to be a huge asset to your game.
The basic strategy has been split up into small sections to help you remember and understand, which will make it easier to refer to if you forget a key point. Stick to these basic strategical pointers and you won’t go too far wrong. After reading this article, you can move onto the other strategy articles available on this site to pick up new tips and fine tune your game, but this is where you are going to get your fundamentals from. If you learn everything that is laid out for you over the next few paragraphs, you will find that you will be better than 50% of the players out there, so get ready to soak up some vital poker strategy information…
Only Play Good Hands
If you are going to play any hand in Holdem, you want to make sure that it is good. The best starting hands in Holdem are the big pocket pairs and the big suited connectors like AK and AQ. You should try to avoid the small suited and connecting cards as they will more often than not get you into trouble, and you will find that you will be losing more money with them than you win. If you only ever enter pots with good starting hands, you will find that you will win more hands than you lose, which will mean that you are more likely to come out on top at the end of the day.
Don’t Bluff Too Much
A typical rookie mistake is that they enter too many pots and try to bluff their opponents off of far too many hands. The art of bluffing is a skill that is picked up through hours of play at the tables and from seeing a wide variety of hands, which means it makes it very difficult for a new player to the game to pull off a successful bluff. It is actually possible to win money from poker without ever needing to bluff, so try to avoid bluffing as much as you can, and only bluff when you are very sure that you can get your opponent off their hand.
Pay Attention To Position
Position is something that is often overlooked be new players to the game for months on end, yet it is a very powerful factor that can have a drastic affect on your game if you learn how to use it to your advantage. When you play any hand, you will notice that each player must make their action one after another in a clockwise motion around the table, starting from the player to the left of the button. The player that acts last on each betting round will have an advantage over the rest of the players at the table, as they will be able to see how everyone else acts before they have to make their own play.
This gives that player a huge advantage in the hand, as they can fold when they have a mediocre hand if there is a lot of betting, or bet when they have a mediocre hand if there is a lot of weakness. This is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the advantages of position, as you will find out as you play more and more hands. So try to play more hands when you have position over your opponents, and try to avoid playing too many hands when you do not have position.
Bet Your Good Hands, Fold Your Bad Hands
This may sound like an incredibly simple thing to do, but it is the tried and tested formula to becoming a winning poker player. Many new players to the game try to overcomplicate things by trying to make clever plays on their opponent, but this will often land them in trouble and they will wonder why they aren’t winning any money. Once you know you have become a winning player, only then should you try new things and add new moves to your poker arsenal. Until then, stick to what you know best!
How Much To Bet>
Don’t Pay Too Much For Draws
If you have a drawing hand such as a flush or a straight draw, be careful not to call big bets to try and complete your hand. You want to try and see the next card as cheaply as possible, so if you feel that your opponent is betting too much to make it worth a call to make your flush or straight, just fold your hand. As a general rule, if the size of your opponent’s bet is more than 1/3 of the total size of the pot, it probably isn’t going to be worth it to make the call. For exact information on whether or not to make a call for your draw depending on the size of a bet, read our article on ‘pot odds’.
Don’t Get Too Attached To Hands
If you ever feel that you have the worst hand when facing a bet from your opponent, be strict with yourself and fold. Always be prepared to let a hand go if you think it is second best, no matter how good it might look to you. A lot of players will make calls just to see ‘what they had’ to satisfy their curiosity, and it always ends up losing them a large amount of money in the process. Folding decent hands is one of the hardest aspects of poker to master, so try to be strict with your game from the start and you will begin to see positive results in a smaller amount of time.
Hands To Avoid>
Summary
This basic strategy is all that you will need to set yourself on your way to a winning playing level. It all appears to be simple enough, but it is one thing reading about it, and another to actually use it whilst you are sitting at the table; so try hard to incorporate everything that you learn into your game. It is a very satisfying feeling to win money from poker, so it is certainly worth your while to learn up on some good poker strategy.
The best thing about learning good strategy is that you will never forget it, and you can always come back to the game and use your knowledge and ability to win a little extra cash when you want to. The more you learn, the more you can win, and there is a wealth of information available to you to take your game to higher and higher levels. If you put the hours in learning good strategy, you will start to see better results in your ability to play well, along with better results in the size of your bank balance.
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