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This is part 3 of a 4 part beginners series on how to effectively play Texas Hold ‘Em Poker. In Part 2 of this series we expanded a little more on which hands are suitable to play before the flop according to your odds of connecting on the flop. In part three of this series we will talk more about how to play these hands on the flop.

Your pre-flop hand selection is undoubtedly the most important factor to your overall success playing Texas Hold ‘Em poker, but that’s not to say you will win them all based solely on your pre-flop judgment. At the average online poker table a flop will be dealt approximately 30%-35% of the time, meaning that the other ~70% of the time the hand will be won pre-flop. The problem with that is a pre-flop pot will only be a few blinds and perhaps a raise, and if you are to going to win a poker tournament or make a considerable amount of money at a cash game you will need to learn how to play your cards right on the flop as well.

Remember that the odds of winning with a particular hand we discussed in the first part of this series is based on a heads-up all-in situation with a flop-turn-river showdown. These odds don’t take into consideration the fact that your opponent will most likely bet on the flop forcing you to either call, raise or fold.

With that being said let’s go through a few scenarios.

Scenario #1

Your hand 9♣ 9♦

Odds of winning heads up 72.1%

Odds of winning against 9 players 15.6%

Odds of flopping a set 11.76%

4 players call the big blind and now it’s up to you.

You raise 3 times the big blind

The big blind calls and two players call, the other two fold.

So now you’re 4 to the flop

A quick calculation reveals that you are now a 32.6% favorite to win the hand assuming everyone checks to the river.

The flop comes

K♦ 7♣ 6♣

The BB checks, Player 2 checks, Player 3 bets the minimum, and now it’s up to you. Let’s take a second and do a quick analysis of the board.

Q: How does your hand relate to the board?

A: Middle pair, only one overcard.

 

Q: Is it possible someone is holding a K in their hand?

A: The BB and player 2 checked which potentially rules them out. Player 3 bet the minimum which is generally a fishing bet and not representative of a K.

 

Q: Is it possible someone is holding 7-7 or 6-6?

A: Same as with the possibility of a K if someone was holding trips they would have bet out on the flop and more than the minimum amount.

 

Q: Are there any possible draws?

A: A club flush draw is possible.

 

Q: Are my pocket 9s good?

A: Only one way to find out: raise.

You raise half the pot.

The BB folds, player 2 fold. Player 3 thinks about it for a second and says those words you didn’t want to hear “I’m all-in”.

You fold immediately.

Chances are that player 3 was in fact holding either A-K or made a set on the flop.

Keep in mind that while you may have lost a small portion of your chip stack by raising a fractional amount of the pot you were able to determine that you were behind and most likely beat by an opponent who was bent on slow playing a stronger hand. In texas hold ’em poker, a good laydown is often more valuable than a good win. Had your opponent been holding 6♦ or 7♦ he would have laid it down immediately following your raise.

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Tags: How to play texas holdem, Texas holdem
Posted in Guides

This is part 2 of a 4 part beginners series on how to effectively play Texas Hold ‘Em Poker. In Part 1 of this series you learned the odds of winning pre-flop with the top 10 best starting hands in Texas Hold ‘Em Poker in a heads up situation as well as in a 10 player situation. Part 2 of this series will focus on expanding your starting hand selection based on the probabilities of connecting your hand on the flop.

As you saw in the first part of this series the odds of flipping over one of the top 10 hands in Texas Hold ‘Em are fairly slim. While playing conservatively and waiting to be dealt one of these hands is a good beginner strategy in a cash game where the blinds always remain the same, in a tournament with increasing blinds and antes this strategy will result in your being blinded and lead to an eventual early exit. Let’s take a look at some more odds to illustrate this logic:

Odds of being dealt either A-A or K-K 1 in 110.5, or 0.905%

This means that for every 110 hands dealt you will be dealt the pocket rockets or american airlines only once.

Odds of being dealt 7-7 or better 1 in 27.6, or 3.62%

Granted your odds are improving but you are still looking at very marginal odds.

Odds of being dealt ANY pocket pair 1 in 17, or 5.88%

Now you’re getting some slightly better odds but remember a pocket pair doesn’t always make you the favorite in a 10 way pot.

Let’s take a look now at the odds of improving your hand on the flop;

Flopping a set with ANY pocket pair 1 in 9.51, or 11.76%

Those odds make a lot of starting hands look more attractive. Your 2-2 which had coin flip 50% of winning pre-flop now has an extra 11.76% chance of winning on the flop.

What’s important to remember with low pocket pairs such as 2-2, 3-3, 4-4, 5-5, and 6-6 is that they are vulnerable to a lot of overcards that can come on the flop. While the odds of hitting a set on the flop are 1 in 9.5 which gives you great odds and justify a raise pre-flop if the flop doesn’t make you a set you need to be ready to throw your cards in the muck as soon as an opponent raises. Let’s look at an example:

Your hand: 3♥ 3♦

Odds of winning heads up 53.7%

Odds of winning against 9 players 12.0%

Odds of making a set on the flop 11.76%

With any pocket pair you should always put in a raise pre-flop to knock-off as many players as possible to improve your odds.

You raise the standard 3 times the BB and you only have 1 caller.

Let’s look at two different flops to analyze how to act accordingly:

Flop #1

3♠ 5♠ 9♦

Great flop, you hit your 1 in 9.51 odds and made a set. You move all-in and your opponent folds.

*** Normally in this situation you would slow play your set to extract the most chips as possible from your opponents but we’ll save that for a more advanced lesson.

Flop #2

A♠ 9♣ Q♣

Now you’ve completely missed the flop and there are 3 overcards to your pocket 3s. Make a small continuation to see whether your opponent connected with that flop and if you are faced with a raise fold immediately.

The more advanced strategy in this situation would be to make a sizable continuation bet to represent a big hand and take down the pot but playing an underpair on the turn and river requires a deeper understanding of the game.

We’ve now expanded the starting hand selection to include lower pocket pairs. Here’s a quick reference guide of your odds of winning with these pocket pairs.

66

Odds of being dealt 0.45%

Odds of winning heads up 63.3%

Odds of winning against 9 players 13.1%

55

Odds of being dealt 0.45%

Odds of winning heads up 60.3 %

Odds of winning against 9 players 12.3%

44

Odds of being dealt 0.45%

Odds of winning heads up 57.0%

Odds of winning against 9 players 12.1%

33

Odds of being dealt 0.45%

Odds of winning heads up 53.7%

Odds of winning against 9 players 12.0%

22

Odds of being dealt 0.45%

Odds of winning heads up 50.3%

Odds of winning against 9 players 12.0%

Part 3 

Tags: Flop, How to, River, Texas holdem, Turn
Posted in Guides

This is part 1 of a 4 part beginners series on how to effectively play Texas Hold ‘Em Poker. Part 1 of this series will focus on selecting your starting hands.

Whether you’ve been playing texas hold ’em poker for a few months or several years you will surely know by now that the most important decision you can make is which two cards you will play before the flop. Unfortunately you can’t count on flipping over two aces every time as you will be dealt the pocket rockets on average once every 220 hand or 0.45% of the time. Since those odds don’t seem very favorable you will need to loosen you starting hand requirements. Determining which two cards to play preflop is not an easy task and there are several factors to consider most importantly your position at the table but we’ll get into that later on in the tutorial. For now let’s review the top 10 texas hold ’em poker starting hands.

The hands are ranked according to the odds of winning preflop against one opponent.

AA

Odds of being dealt 0.45%

Odds of winning heads up 85.3%

Odds of winning against 9 players 31.1%

KK

Odds of being dealt 0.45%

Odds of winning heads up 82.4%

Odds of winning against 9 players 26.1%

QQ

Odds of being dealt 0.45%

Odds of winning heads up 79.9%

Odds of winning against 9 players 22.2%

JJ

Odds of being dealt 0.45%

Odds of winning heads up 77.5%

Odds of winning against 9 players 19.3%

TT

Odds of being dealt 0.45%

Odds of winning heads up 75.1%

Odds of winning against 9 players 17.2%

99

Odds of being dealt 0.45%

Odds of winning heads up 72.1%

Odds of winning against 9 players 15.6%

88

Odds of being dealt 0.45%

Odds of winning heads up 69.1%

Odds of winning against 9 players 14.4%

AK Suited

Odds of being dealt 0.3%

Odds of winning heads up 67.0%

Odds of winning against 9 players 20.7%

77

Odds of being dealt 0.45%

Odds of winning heads up 66.2%

Odds of winning against 9 players 13.7%

AQ Suited

Odds of being dealt 0.3%

Odds of winning heads up 66.1%

Odds of winning against 9 players 19.3%

While it’s not important to memorize every single percentage, what is important is to realize that even pocket aces, the strongest starting hand in texas hold ’em poker, are only a 31.1% favorite to win in a 10 way pot. As a beginner player the concept of slow playing a big pair is too advanced and requires a deeper understanding of possible outs and probabilities therefore until you become more comfortable with these concepts you should focus on always raising when you are dealt one of these top 10 hands so as to preferably go heads up to the flop.

Let’s use an example to illustrate the importance of raising strong starting hands pre-flop. For the time being we will omit the positional advantage and just focus on starting hands.

Your hand: A♠K♠

At this point there are 9 players to act after you. If you call and everyone else calls your odds of winning at this point are 20.7%. The flop could come all ♠ giving you the best possible hand but it could just as well come all ♣ with no A or K thus putting you in a tough spot against 9 players as the odds of another player having x♣x♣ are approximately 25%.

You raise three times the big blind everyone folds around to the BB who calls.

Now your odds of winning before seeing the flop are 67.0%, you’ve just tripled your odds of winning a substantial pot.

We’ll go into post flop play in the next few lessons, but here’s a preview.

The flop comes

A♣ 3♥ 7♦

A quick analysis of the board shows that you are now an 85% favorite to win the hand with your pair of aces and top kicker assuming your opponent did not flop a set or two pairs. You bet half the pot and unless your opponent is holding two pairs or made a set, he will fold.

That concludes the first lesson on the top 10 starting hands in texas hold ’em poker. Remember the key is to raise before the flop to knock off as many players as possible in order to improve your odds of winning.

The second part of this series will go into more detail about how to select your starting hands based on the probabilities of connecting on the flop.

Part 2 

Tags: guide, odds, starting hands, Texas holdem
Posted in Guides