Poker strategy tips and tutorials for beginners and advanced players. Improve your skills and learn from experts about Texas Holdem strategy other Poker variants at PokerNews.com.
- Texas Poker Strategy
- Advanced Poker Strategy Texas Holdem
- Texas Hold'em No Limit Poker Strategy
- Learning Texas Holdem Poker Strategy
Welcome to Play Great Poker, the Free Resource for Learning Texas Holdem Poker Strategy. Here you will find information on Texas Holdem Poker Strategy as well as a Free Poker Game where you can practice and test what you learn.
FREE POKER GAME - Practice Your Texas Holdem Strategy for Free
Test your Poker Strategy without risking your money. Here at Play Great Poker, we provide visitors a Texas Holdem Poker Game Free allowing them to play, learn, and test their Poker Strategy. Read More about our Free Poker GameStarting Hand Charts for the 6 Max Game
The 6 Max game is a very popular 6 Player game that is available when playing Online Poker. The Starting Hand Charts included here are aimed at providing the player with a solid tight starting range. Read More about Starting Hand Charts for the 6 Max GameStarting Hand Charts for the Full Ring Game
Starting Hand Charts for Full Ring Games both Live and Online. Read More about Starting Hand Charts for the Full Ring GameStarting Hand Ranges
Hand Ranges are groupings of starting hands, usually referring to an opponent’s likely two card holdings. Ranges are determined by the ranking of starting hands from best to worse in percentage form. Understanding Hand Ranges is important for visualizing an opponent’s potential holding. This is especially true when playing online and using HUDs. Read More about Starting Hand RangesPoker Hand Rankings
When you are new to Texas Holdem Poker, before you even try to learn Texas Holdem Poker Strategy, your first task is to learn the Poker Hand Rankings. There are ten hands that are ranked within the Poker Hand Rankings from the very best, which is a Royal Flush, to a Single High Card when no one has made a hand. Read More about Poker Hand Rankings5 Poker Training Methods – Which One is for You?
What are some of the best Poker Training Methods and which one is for you? There are many ways of gaining knowledge on poker or really any subject. Some people prefer to learn from reading books while others may prefer a classroom environment. This article details some of the top Poker Training Methods. Read More about the top Poker Training MethodsPoker Bankroll Management
Poker Bankroll and Bankroll Management - Without proper Bankroll Management of your poker bankroll, you will almost surely not succeed at poker. Due to poker variance, having the proper padding in your poker bankroll to ensure one downswing will not wipe out your entier poker bankroll is essential to becoming a successful winning player. Read More about Poker Bankroll ManagementPoker Math
Poker is a game of skill and using the ability to read situations and opponents to give you the advantage in each hand you play. It is also a game of mathematics, where you should be able to calculate the odds of either you or your opponent winning the hand in any situation. This article on Mathematics and Poker article was provided by The Poker Bank. Read More about Poker MathPositional Awareness
Positional Awareness - Positional Awareness is the understanding of how your position at the table affects your ability to win the hand. Understanding the advantages and disadvantages of position allows you to understand which hands to play from each position as well as become aware of what hands your opponents may be playing. Position can make all your decisions easy or hard, it can determine whether you call, raise, or fold and it can make the same exact two cards either a good hand or bad. Read More about Positional AwarenessBluffing in Poker
A Bluff is when you bet or raise with a hand that you think is not the best hand but you think the bet can induce a fold by your opponent or opponents. When people think about great poker players, they think about players winning huge pots by bluffing the other player into folding. In reality, winning players don’t bluff that often. Read More about Bluffing in PokerBet Sizing In Texas Holdem Poker
Understanding when to bet is an important skill to master in Texas Holdem poker. But just as important or even more important is knowing how much to bet in each situation. When you bet or raise, you need to size your bet appropriately for your goal. Playing smart and being aggressive is the formula for winning at texas holdem poker. You will not be successful if you need the best hand to win. When you bet or raise, you have two ways to win, you could have the best hand or your opponents could fold. When you check or call you can only win with the best hand at showdown. Understanding bet sizing is vital or your bets and raises will fail to accomplish their goal. Read More about Bet Sizing In Texas Holdem PokerTable Image In Texas Holdem Poker
Recognizing your Table Image is important to master in Texas Holdem poker. Table Image in Texas Holdem Poker effects how your opponent’s play against you. Some days everything is working and your opponents think you are a super player or just getting all the luck that day. On days like this, you can push around your opponents and bluff much more because they will always think you have the goods. Other days, no matter what hand you have, you seem to lose. Your opponents will sense this and start calling your CBets and raises. When your opponents don't fear you, you will be relying on having the best hand to win, which is never a good strategy. When this happens, you need to switch tables, which is easy to do online, or leave for the day. Read More Table Image In Texas Holdem PokerPlaying Big Pairs In Texas Holdem Poker
Understanding how to play big pairs is an important skill to master in Texas Holdem poker. Whenever you have AA, KK or QQ you alomost centianly have the best hand most of the time. Now the key is you will need to maximize the money you make on these hands. Read More about Playing Big Pairs In Texas Holdem PokerTrouble Hands In Texas Holdem
Some hands look good preflop, but when they hit, they are many times the second-best hand by the time the river comes. They are hard to lay down and calling with them to the river will cost you a lot of money. Thes hands can also commonly be referred to as Hands with High Reversed Implied Odds. Read More about Trouble Hands in Texas Holdem PokerPrescreened Articles on Poker Strategy
Texas Holdem Hand Reading
Hand Reading is a technique where you assign a player an opening hand range. Then, as the cards are dealt, you narrow down that players possible range based on the cards dealt and the player’s actions as well as your knowledge of that player. This is a more advanced topic once the poker basics are mastered. To learn more about Hand Reading, you can visit SmartPokerStudy.com where Sky Matsuhashi goes through 66 days of hand reading, one hand per day. Read More about Texas Holdem Hand ReadingPoker Hand Rankings & Downloadable Chart (Top Texas Hold’em Hands)
Download a chart of the Poker Hand Rankings from UpSwingPoker. Here you will find the Hand Rankings and helpful information to get started with Texas Holdem. Read More about Poker Hand Rankings5 Proven Ways to Stop Losing at Poker
5 Tips from Nathan 'BlackRain79' Williams to help you stop losing at poker. This article has 5 tips that should be helpful to players struggling to make money at poker. Read More about 5 Proven Ways to Stop Losing at PokerWhat To Open-Raise Preflop?
Your Preflop decisions can set you to up succeed or fail in a hand. Here is an article by Hunter Cichy at RedChipPoker.com helping players with their Preflop opening ranges. Read More about What To Open-Raise PreflopThe Check-Raise
Aggressive poker is winning poker. Check raising is a great strategy to start to master once you have solid fundamental basis skills. This article on PokerListings should provide you with a good start on learning this skill. Read More about The Check-Raise12 Poker Beginner Mistakes That Will Kill Your Winnings
'BlackRain79' Williams lists 12 Mistakes that new poker players make. Some new players continue to make the same mistakes over and over again for years. And it ends up ruining all of their profits from poker. Read More about 12 Poker Beginner Mistakes That Will Kill Your WinningsHow to Play Ace King
Ace King is one of the strongest hands in poker and will be one of the top long-term winners, but is for many players it is one of the hardest hands to play. I was recently at an online table and one player went all-in against another with AK. He lost and I put in the chat – “I’ve lost so much money on AK”. Then another play wrote “me too”, followed by another. All five other players at the six-max table said the same thing. AK is one of the strong hands in poker. How can it be that it’s so hard to play? Here is an article from Nathan 'BlackRain79' Williams called “How to Play Ace King”. Read More about How to Play Ace King- Poker Strategy Guide: Tactics & Theory of Texas Hold'em - PokerStrategy.com Learn profitable Texas Hold'em strategy and understand the theory behind winning poker play with strategy articles, columns, quizzes and hand discussions.
- A lot of Texas Hold 'Em strategy is based on the cards in your hand. You must be willing to suffer through a series of poor hands (e.g. 5-8, 2-6, 4-9) without getting impatient. The good hands will come, eventually, and you'll be in a better position to take advantage of them if you don't waste your chips trying to get something out of nothing.
- Texas Holdem Strategy Texas holdem poker is the most popular card game in the United States. It’s also hugely popular in Europe and other countries. Omaha has a firm foothold in other countries, too, but Texas holdem has a big following just about everywhere.
- Texas Hold’em Poker Strategy: 5 Rules to Live by Poker strategy is everything. Anyone who says otherwise is kidding themselves. Yet, it’s unbelievable how many poker players ante up for a war of attrition against seasoned poker veterans without any strategy in mind.
Poker Tournament Strategy
Whether you’re playing micro stakes tournaments or the Sunday Million – you need to know what you’re doing to have a chance at winning. That seems obvious right? But trust me, there are too many players entering tournaments with no clue. That’s great news for you though cos it mean’s poker is not dead, despite what you hear. This article is going to give you poker tournament strategy tips that can be used to increase your cash rate, final tables and wins.
Don’t stop stealing the blinds
Texas Poker Strategy
Tournament poker regs seem to nit it up and count on making it deep with premium hands. Don’t be one of them. Stay active, keep stealing the blinds from late position and don’t give up. A lot of poker sites are advocating the slow down approach but that’s what your opponents want. Regs are playing too many tables, not paying enough attention and missing profitable spots to steal the blinds. Tournament poker will always reward those who are able to consistently steal blinds and keep their stack alive. The fact that people are defending their blinds loosely should not make you fold more often in late position. Why? You have position. You have the advantage in a hand, even if your hand is weaker. Never forget that.
Pre-flop bet sizing
Consistency is very important when it comes to raising pre-flop. It’s fine if you want to make it 2.5x then stick with that. Please don’t change it based on hand strength. It’s 2020 and even the most basic of poker players will notice and instantly tag you. If you are a poker training video membership member, you’ll know my preference re’ pre-flop bet sizing but I will re-iterate it here non-members.
Early Position Min Raise
When I’m raising from early position, I lack information on the rest of the table. I want to open raise if I play but I also want to steal cheaply and/or keep the pot smaller against my opponents that flat in position. I also have no problem with it folding to the big blind and them calling a min raise. In fact, I welcome it. I will have position, a better hand and have increased the pot a little. My hand range is likely to be stronger than theirs and I have the pre-flop aggression.
Middle Position 2.2x
With fewer opponents behind us, I am happy to increase the sizing a bit and play a slightly bigger pot against the blinds. I don’t want to raise too much as I am still potentially acting first post-flop if someone in position calls. I am also slightly dissuading the blinds to call which is no bad thing in tournaments. I am likely to have a wider range from here so I have no problem with them just folding.
Late Position 2.5x
Advanced Poker Strategy Texas Holdem
This may seem counter intuitive to some. Why raise more with a wider range? I want to play bigger pots when I have positional advantage. Sure, sometimes I will be light but sometimes I will be strong too. I want to charge the blinds more than the minimum to play against my wider range. By making it 2.5x I am also protecting myself against 3 bet bluffs a little more. Consider a min raise from the button. The big blind is far more likely to 3 bet bluff that than a bigger raise.
Notice – my pre-flop raises changes based on position – it doesn’t change based on hand strength. Therefore, it is logically consistent as I am raising 2.5x from late position with A-A and K-6s.
Defend the big blind
Everyone and their dog are loving the small ball approach these days. The standard small raise is popular and with good reason – it works. One of the results of this is that you have to defend your big blind more. It means calling raises with hands you won’t necessarily want to but pot odds and solid poker tournament strategy dictate you must. Let’s look at a quick example to illustrate this.
Blinds – 600/1,200 (antes 120)
Player A- 42,500
You – 36,900
It folds to Player A on the button. He is a capable tournament player. He raises to 2,500. The small blind folds and the action is on you. Before even looking at your hand, let’s do some poker maths.
Pot – (1,080 antes, 1,800 in blinds + 2,500) = 5,380
Cost to call – 1,300
Equity needed to call – 19.4%
As you can see, you need to defend super wide in this spot. You just can’t afford to fold too many hands when you are getting these kind of prices in big blind.
3 Bet with 30 bbs +
Tournament poker is often playing shorter stacks and less “poker” playing but that doesn’t mean you must play shove or fold poker. You don’t want to 3 bet bluff with short effective stacks cos it means the 4 bet from your opponent will always be all in. With slightly deeper stacks though (30 bbs+), you can afford to 3 bet bluff and take away a lot of pots. Poker tournament strategy is usually to attack short stacks. Screw that, 3 bet bluff the bigger stacks. I find that the big stacks are just as protective as the shorter stacks, if not more. It also means you can potentially get the last bet in if they decide to 4 bet. Good spots for 3 betting are when the raise has come from middle or late position.
CAUTION – Avoid 3 bet bluffing when they are raising from under the gun or UTG +1 as their range is likely to be tighter.
Learn continuation betting strategy
This article is dedicated to poker tournament strategy, not continuation betting but the fact is, c betting is an important part of tournament poker. You need to understand which boards favour your perceived range and what favours your opponent. A lot of players waste chips throwing out foolish continuation bets. You need to appreciate board texture, number of opponents and stack sizes when choosing whether to continuation bet or not. If you want more help with continuation betting, check out our article on the do’s and don’ts of continuation betting.
Isolate the limper(s)
An oldie but goody. Raising over a limper or limpers is still a very profitable play. It’s crazy to think there are still players that adopt this limp in mentality, but it’s great for us. If people want to try and limp into the pot with pocket 3s or A-9 offsuit, that’s fine, we will take their blinds all day. In some scenarios, it may seem prudent to over-limp but most of the time, just raise it 4x and win it. If they call, you can often just win it with a flop bet anyway. It’s a great way to build a stack in tournament poker and is also good for your table image as people. This might help you get paid later in the tournament.
Practice heads up poker
Many tournaments end in deals being done but what if yours doesn’t? What if you’re against a tough player or someone unwilling to deal. You need to know how to play 1 on 1. After all, if you want to win the tournament you have to beat the last opponent. Heads up is a great poker format. Some basic heads up tips are below:
- Raise every button
- Bet most flops
- Check raise more
- Bluff catch 2nd pair down
- Stay on top of your opponent, don’t let up
- Don’t show bluffs
Texas Hold'em No Limit Poker Strategy
Join Poker Training Video Membership
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