Texas hold em strategies

There are many texas hold em strategies a new player must learn when becoming a master of the game. I refer to three different levels of player, the fish, the piranha, and the shark. I myself am by no means a shark, I rank somewhere in the piranha level. The piranha level is by far the hardest to graduate from as the level of skill required to become a shark takes years of practice. Thanks to internet poker players are able to learn much more quickly, but without playing in live games as well, skills such as controlling your adrenaline while in a live game will be non-existent.

The most important part in any strategy is to learn what beats what. If you think a flush loses to a straight you’ll be folding winners and will have no chance of ever coming out ahead. After you’ve learned hand rankings you graduate up to hand selection. At first it’s important to learn how to fold the majority of the hands you see. Why? Because hand selection is very important, especially when you’re first learning. If you’re playing a lot of 7 3 offsuits in the beginning you’ll develop bad playing habits that will be harder to break in the future. Just because you are winning a few times with a bad hand from early position doesn’t mean you’ll always be winning with those hands. The odds are against you.

So once you learn how to fold you’ll start to learn about position at the table. Position has to do with where you are sitting in relation to the dealer button. Those who have to decide if they want to play or fold first are in what is known as “early position.” This is a bad place to be as you will have to bet first throughout each betting round. You do not want to play many hands out of early position because you have no idea what everyone else is holding. They can make moves and plays on you leaving you at the disadvantage of having to call away chips in hopes of making hands.

After early position we have what is known as “middle position.” Here you can start to play a few more hands but still want to make sure you are playing quality hands. Finally we have what is known as “late position.” Here you can play more hands, especially if you are “on the button.” On the button means the dealer button is right in front of you and you are last to act on every round of betting. This is a powerful position because you can make raises to force other weaker hands to fold, as well as see cheap flops or turns if no one else has bet. From late position you can play more hands because you can fold if someone bets large and you didn’t make a hand or you can check your straight draw if no one else has bet leaving you with more free cards. There is no wondering what other players will do from late position because they’ve all already made their decision. You can see who is weak and make a play on them or you can take free cards if you so wish if no one else has bet.

After learning position different playing styles can be learned. Do you want to be aggressive, tight, tight aggressive, see lots of flops, chase straights and flushes, or just play like a maniac raising a lot of pots? You’ll learn your table image the more you play and you’ll learn how to adjust based on how other players at the table are playing. If a lot of people are trying to see cheap flops why not make it cost them more to see the flop? If someone is raising every flop start playing tight then when you pick up a good hand re-raise them. Learning how to play in different scenarios and with different players is key to becoming a great hold em player.

Once you’ve mastered these texas hold em strategies you’ll be ready to move on to bigger pots and against better opponents.