How To Play Texas HoldEm

Basics -

A poker table can have between 2 to 11 players sitting playing Texas Holdem. Often a max table is either going to be 9 or 10 though. And shorthanded is often referred to a table with 6 or less players.

We now have the blinds and antes. Blinds are forced bets after the "Button" which is the person who acts last on subsequent betting rounds. So at a ten player table we will have one person sitting on the button. The person directly to his left will be the "Small Blind." If the minimum bet on the first round of betting is $10 dollars, then the small blind has been forced to bet $5 dollars. Directly to the left of the small blind is the big blind, who is forced to bet the minimum, or $10 dollars. Antes are forced bets that are often imposed late in tournaments, it involves making everyone at the table throw in a small forced bet.

Next after everyone has thrown in their forced bets, the dealer deals 2 cards to every player. These are known as your "whole cards." You have a round of betting, starting with the player directly to the left of the "Big Blind" and continuing left around the table until everyone has bet/called/folded. The dealer then deals 3 cards face up. This is known as the flop. A round of betting will ensue. Then the dealer will deal down 1 card or the Turn or Fourth Street. A round of betting agian will ensue. Finally the dealer will deal down 1 last card or the River or Fifth Street. The final round of betting will occur, and then the players will show their hands and the best 5 card hand made from the 2 cards in your hand and the 5 on the table will be the winner.

Poker hand rankings are the same as they have ever been througout the ages. But I'll throw them up here anyway. The strengths are going to be in decsending order.

High card - The highest card in your hand that isn't paired. (Jack)
Pair - Two cards of the same rank (Jack - Jack)
Two pair - Just like the name says, two pair (Jack - Jack, Queen - Queen)
Three of a kind - Three cards of the same rank (Jack - Jack - Jack)
Straight - 5 cards in consecutive order in rank (Ten - Jack - Queen - King - Ace)
Flush - 5 cards with the same suit (5 clubs, hearts, spades, diamonds)
Full House - A three of a kind coupled with a pair (Jack - Jack - Jack - Queen - Queen)
4 of a kind - Just like Three of a kind but with one more card (Jack - Jack - Jack - Jack)
Straight Flush - 5 cards in consecutive order in rank and all the same suit.
Royal Flush - Same as a Straight Flush, but it's highest card is the ace. The best hand in poker.

*******
Before I publish my first strategy guide for this ever popular Texas Hold'Em I must make something clear that most books will not tell you. You will not be a successful poker player copying someone's play style exactly, you can idolize them and aspire to be as good as them, but you can never be as good of a poker player without making your play style unique to yourself.

Advanced:
Play Style

So instead of promoting a certain type of play style, I will describe some common play styles. I will then attempt to help you understand the strengths and weaknesses of certain hands.

First before going into great detail about play styles, I have to mention that your play style is not going to be specific to these ones I'm describing below. Your style will change according to the game and limit. How you attack a certain table, or a certain player is truly your personal play style, these are just common ways of attacking poker.

Tight Aggressive - The most recommended but hardest to adopt:

Picking good starting hands and betting aggressively when you have the probable best hand. This means no slowplaying unless you have a hand with a lock (meaning 90% or better chance to win by showdown).

The basics of this style is to wait for good hands and bet to make the impatient ones at the table pay to play their sub par hands. Very good style when playing at a table full of loose players. Will work best against loose weak players, who play lots of hands but don't bet or raise often. Loose Aggressive is a little harder to play against as it's hard to sense whether you are up against a good hand or not.

Loose Aggressive - The controlled Maniac:

Playing any and all hands very aggressively, putting the pressure on constantly. This style is not the most recommended online as it is hard to pick up on tells, and it's easy to be slowplayed into a monster pot you can't win. This works well at live games as a good player reader can pick up on tells and can sense weakness or strength.

Loose Passive Preflop, Semi-Tight Aggressive postflop - The sleeper - (Credit to WaffeHo, the "HoDa" for this style)

You play many hands preflop, limping to see a flop, and then turning the heat on with aggressive betting to either grab a pot that hits no one, or to figure out whether your flush draw or straight draws are any good. This is a wonderful style for putting folks on tilt(a player who is very mad at the game and is playing subpar poker). Be wary as this style works on very specific tables where everyone is very timid with their money and willing to see flops cheaply but can be outplayed postflop.

*****************

As I stated before, these styles are not exclusive to anyones game, you must change it up according to the game and your table image.

Table Image - How the rest of the table sees you, "the biggest bluff of the game."

This is very important for good poker players and is often how tournaments are won. Most pros adopt a tight image (play very few hands) then later in the game or tournament you have an upsurge of aggression and begin playing more hands. Your image dictates that you have good hands when in fact you are holding marginal hands. This can result in just enough stolen blinds and pots to make a good session a great session, or a 15th place tournament result into a top 5.

Some more unique pros such as Gus Hansen, adopts a very loose aggressive image. This makes them difficult to read, but more importantly it makes the amateur player believe that you will always have trash cards. So when you do hit your big AA hand, chances are you will be paid off handsomly by the showdown.

*********

Bringing it all together:

A winning poker player mixes his game up, often you have a certain way of approaching most games, working at getting a table image, then exploiting it to it's full potential. It isn't about being unpredictable, it's about looking predictable but mixing it up with a few unpredicted hands that win big.

*********

Now to the starting hands. Often times it's given information in most poker books to give you a list of playable preflop hands, but offer no more information. I will attempt to explain why certain hands work and others do not.

The classic monsters - AA, KK, QQ

These hands hold special importance in being favorites preflop, thus you are 95% sure you have the best hand during that round of betting. It's often good practice to bet these as such to make bad hands or hands that are 2:1 or worse underdogs to you to draw on you with inadequete pot odds (pot odds are the caluculations of the money bet for money won).

These hands are not invulnerable and thus must be protected by good bets, but a good poker player must know when to fold them if someone is representing a hand that has yours beat.

The high card hands - AK, AQ, AJ, KQ, etc.

These hands hold the value of either being in great condition (having a bad hand like A9 or KJ dominated because of the smaller kicker, the second best card) or nearly 50/50 to hands like JJ, TT, 99, etc.

Again these hands should be played aggressively because they are even more vulnerable to losing to bad hands, and thus you must make bad hands pay to see flops.

Drawing Hands - JT, Axs, 56s, small pocket pairs, etc.

These hands are the connectors, and suited hands to either small connectors or suited to an ace. These hands are small favorites to hitting big hands such as straights, flushes and straight flushes. They also help disguise your play a little more often, as small hands aren't expected to be played very often.

These hands should see flops cheaply, to figure out whether you will even have straight or flush draw potential. Smaller pocket pairs are the same, you want to see the flop cheaply and hope you make a set (three of a kind) which is one of the most profitable hands you can receive.
Use caution and don't chase a hand you aren't getting the correct pot odds to chase, this is why hands such as these shouldn't be played by beginners as they often misjudge their odds of hitting their hand.

Trash Hands - 72o, T2o, K4, etc.

These hands are the unsuited and even suited hands that have both cards too far away from each other to give you much chance of hitting a straight, a pair that will stand up, or a flush that can win. Unless you are really intent on making everyone at the table think you are a fish, these should normally be thrown away the second you see them. And these will probably account for nearly 60% of the hands you will see in hold em, if not more.

********

This concludes my very first strategy article. I hope this proves helpful for beginners and amateurs alike. I will have more articles to come dealing with more advanced topics including betting, pot odds, implied odds, and tilt.

Please leave some comments and feedback! And have a wonderful rest of the weekend.