Texas Holdem Strategy Reddit
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.
If you want to be a winning poker player, it’s almost a given
that you’ll need to learn at least the basics of Texas holdem
strategy. After all, you’ll be able to find more games (and more
weak players) at those tables than anywhere else.
Texas Holdem hands strategy is very important. See the below Hand Matrix. It displays all the possible hands you could be dealt preflop. You can see which range of hands you should play from a given situation because it is the best, quickest, and easiest way to know what hands to play. One basic strategy that can be used for betting in Texas Hold’Em is to try to focus on what cards you think the other players are holding in their hands. It will be important to watch the other players to get clues on what they may have or may be planning.
Texas holdem strategy is a huge subject, too. We have
literally dozens of pages on various subtopics related to the
subject. Below we provide brief introductions to many of the
strategic concepts you need to understand. In almost every
instance, we link to a comprehensive page devoted to that
concept, too.
Low Limit Strategy vs High Limit Strategy
The process of learning how to win at Texas hold'em can be broken down into several categories. The main ones are: Basic Poker Tips: These include elements like the hands ranking, poker glossary. No single comment on Reddit can give you a complete 'strategy' for poker. That being said there are few things that can, hopefully, significantly improve your game: Don't play every hand. While any hand can win, most of the time you are just throwing money away playing sub-optimal hands.
The strategies you use when playing for lower limits differ
from the correct strategies at higher limit games. As a general
rule—and make no mistake, there are exceptions—you’ll find more
unskilled players at the lower limits than you will at the
higher limits.
For one thing, it means that a more direct approach to the
game will often be rewarded. We can sum up this direct approach
in 2 sentence:
Get the hands. Then bet the hands.
First of all, it means don’t bother trying to play second
rate hands. Don’t spend a lot of time trying to bluff. Unskilled
players have a hard time laying down hands, and bluffing only
works if your opponents are willing and able to fold.
Second, it means that when you do get good cards, start
putting your money into the table. Bet or raise. Don’t
cold-call. Don’t check. Get paid off for your hands.
Finally, keep in mind something called “the schooling
effect”. Lots of players at this level are calling stations.
This means that if you have a speculative hand, like suited
connectors, you can often get enough other players into the pot
to get paid off big when you hit a strong flop.
When you start playing in higher stakes games, you have to
get more creative in order to win. Skilled players are likely to
notice if you’re playing ABC poker, and they’ll be able to take
advantage of that. So you’ll have to learn how to mix it up.
Microlimit strategy is another aspect, too. The same
strategic concepts that apply to microlimit games, only more so.
Blind Play
It’s important to know how to play from the blinds. In fact,
the blinds are some of the most important positions in a Texas
holdem game. Correct blind strategy is a complicated subject,
too.
Here are some of the basics:
What most players concern themselves with is defending their
blinds. A situation that comes up often is that everyone will
fold before the action gets to the player before the blinds, and
you’ll wind up with some aggressive player who will raise into
you when you’re in the blinds. They might be holding nothing.
You’ll need to be paying attention to your opponents’
tendencies when deciding whether or not they’re just trying to
steal your blinds. It’s okay to fold when someone raises you in
the blind, especially if you have junk.
But it’s not okay to fold EVERY time someone raises your
blind.
Sometimes you need to call and then raise on the flop.
And sometimes you need to re-raise their raise before the
flop.
Some of this depends, too, on what cards you’re holding. If
you have a solid hand (like KK or AA), and someone raises into
your blind, don’t be afraid to try to get them all in.
In fact, premium hands almost play themselves in this
situation. As long as you avoid slow-playing, you’ll be fine.
It’s the more speculative opening hands, like low pairs and
suited connectors, where you have to start making decisions.
And the best guideline to making those decisions is your
knowledge of your opponents’ playing tendencies.
Playing Styles
If you’ve done ANY reading at all about playing styles in
Texas holdem, you’ll know that players are often categorized
according to how many hands they play and according to how often
they raise or bet.
- Players who play a lot of hands are called “loose”, and
players who play only their best hands are called “tight”. - Players who bet and raise a lot are called
“aggressive” - Players who call and check a lot are called “passive”
Most experts agree that tight-aggressive play is the winning
formula, especially at lower levels. This means you should focus
on playing good hands, and betting and raising when you have
them.
You’ll also find plenty of players who do well with a
loose-aggressive style. They play a lot of hands, but they bet
and raise so often that they win a large number of pots without
a contest.
If you win enough smaller pots, you can use that money to
“freeroll” your way into hands where you have more speculative
holdings. This is an especially important strategy to think
about when you get into higher limit play.
Guide to Playing Styles
Odds and Probability
Understanding the odds and probability involved in Texas
holdem are a critical skill. The most important aspect of this
to understand has to do with comparing the odds of hitting your
“outs” and the pot odds being offered.
The first concept to understand is the concept of “outs”. An
“out” is a card that will complete your hand and give you the
winning hand.
You have 2 cards in your hand, both hearts. And the flop also
has 2 hearts on it. So you have 4 cards to a flush.
There are 13 hearts in a deck of cards. 4 of them are already
out there, so 9 of them are left in the deck. And there are 47
cards left in the deck.
Those 9 cards are your “outs”. Those cards will give you what
you need to have a winning hand. (Assuming that you have the top
flush at the showdown, anyway.)
You can compare those odds to the odds that the pot is
offering you to decide whether or not to call a bet.
In this case, the odds of hitting the hand you want are 9/47,
or about 1/5, or 4 to 1. But you get 2 chances at it.
Suppose there’s $100 in the pot, and it only costs you $10 to
call and stay in the pot. You’ll lose 4 times for every time you
win, but you’ll win 10 to 1 on the 5th time. Overall that’s a
profitable play.
Comparing pot odds to the odds of hitting your hand is just
one example of probability in action during a Texas holdem game.
Another factor expert players consider is how likely it is
that other players will fold. You have to take this into account
when making decisions, too.
If you’re playing against a super-tight opponent in the
blinds, and you estimate that there’s a 90% chance he’ll fold
against any raise, raising is almost always the correct play
there.
But you can’t estimate these kinds of odds unless you’re
playing close attention to your opponents’ playing tendencies.
Preflop and Postflop Playing Strategy in Texas Holdem
The first 2 cards you’re dealt in a hand of Texas holdem are
your hole cards. That’s considered your “preflop” hand, and you
need a strategy for how to play them. We’ve seen estimates that
suggest you can break even if you master preflop play, even if
you’re only an average player after the flop.
We mentioned a tight aggressive approach, earlier. This holds
especially true when playing before the flop. It’s also
important to take into account position when you’re playing
preflop.
It’s easy to find a lot of suggestions about which hands you
should and shouldn’t play from various positions before the flop
in holdem. Our favorite way to think about these hands is to
categorize them.
Here are some categories of preflop hands to think about:
High Pairs
High pairs are 2 cards of the same rank that are ranked 10 or
higher. The higher they’re ranked, the better. Aces and kings
are super hands to play preflop, but the value of these pairs
drops dramatically when you’re looking at queens, jacks, or
tens.
Most experts recommend raising from any position with a pair
of aces or kings regardless of what your opponents have done.
But you need more judgment when dealing with a pair of queens or
jacks. If you’ve seen 3 players before you bet and raise
repeatedly, those queens might be an underdog. Some of this
depends on your opponents’ tendencies, too.
Smaller Pairs
Smaller pairs are legitimate starting hands, too, but you’re
hoping for them to improve on the flop. The higher the ranking
of the lower pair, the better off you are. A pair of 9s isn’t
terrible, but a pair of 2s borders on worthless. That’s because
even if you hit another 2 on the flop and make your 3 of a kind,
there are a lot of other potential 3 of a kinds that could beat
you.
Suited Connectors
Suited connectors can be some of the most interesting
starting hands to play. These are 2 cards of the same suit which
are also close in rank. The 10 and J of spades would be
considered suited connectors. These are speculative hands,
because you need them to improve in order to win. But they have
lots of potential—you could make a flush or a straight, for
example. And if the suited connectors are high enough in rank,
you might even wind up with a big pair.
Big-Little Suited
Big-little suited is even more speculative, because you’re
missing some of the straight possibilities. The higher the
cards, the better. An AK suited or an AQ suited is almost as
good as a pair of queens or jacks, but an A4 suited is pretty
speculative. Everything needs to go right in order for you to
win a hand with those cards.
The tendency is to want to bet and raise with your really
strong hands before the flop, but with more speculative hands,
you want to check and call, hoping to get into the hand cheap
with a lot of other players so you’ll get paid off if you hit
your hand.
Who has acted before you and what they did is also super
important to your decision here.
We have entire sections devoted to preflop play, starting
hands, and starting hand charts. All of these topics are closely
related.
Guide to Postflop Strategy
Tournament Strategy and Sit n Gos
Tournaments require a different strategy than ring games,
because the goal is to be one of the last men standing in a
tournament. In a ring game, you can play forever, and the chips
are worth what the chips are worth.
But in a tournament, the values of the chips change as the
game continues. The blinds increase on a regular basis during a
tournament, too, so your strategy has to change based on the
size of your stack versus the size of the blinds.
Some Texas holdem players specialize in tournaments. Others
prefer ring games. The thing about tournaments is that they have
a higher variance. Some players like this, but others prefer a
steadier stream of winnings.
Here’s what we mean:
You might play in a dozen tournaments with an average buy-in
of $100 each. You might only place in the money in one of them,
but you also might win $4000 in that one, so you’re profitable.
But it took you a while to become profitable.
A ring game player, on the other hand, might play steadily
and win $1000 a month consistently 5 months out of 6, having a
losing money only occasionally.
Your temperament will determine which is better for you.
We have sections about tournaments in general and about sit
in go tournaments specifically, too. (A sit n go is a specific
type of tournament that’s most prevalent on the Internet.)
Psychology, Tilt, Tells and Texas Holdem Strategy
The psychology of Texas holdem covers multiple subjects. For
one thing, understanding what your opponents’ emotional
tendencies are can be a big edge in any Texas holdem game. If
you know that one player likes to be the sheriff (he calls a lot
of hands to make sure you’re not winning money by bluffing),
you’ll know the best way to extract the most money from him.
If you know that a player makes bad decisions when he’s mad,
and if you notice what makes him mad, you can subtly manipulate
his anger to take advantage of those bad decisions. In fact,
this is a serious phenomenon called “tilt”.
A player who is tilting is putting money into the pot because
of anger, not because it’s the mathematically correct play. It’s
easy to take advantage of players with that tendency.
Understanding your own psychology is just as important. You
have to know when you’re on tilt. You also need to know how to
avoid tilt to begin with. If you realize you’re on tilt, it’s
time for a break. You might even need to take the rest of the
night off from playing poker.
Tells are another aspect of poker psychology. Tells are
subtle physical clues as to what kinds of cards your opponents
are holding. Most players have tells. And most players aren’t
good at spotting them.
Entire books have been written about spotting tells at the
poker table. Tells are only one aspect of Texas holdem strategy,
but they’re a “sexy” aspect of it. Some players, especially
beginners, spend too much time and energy thinking about and
trying to spot tells.
Guide to Tilt Strategy
Guide to Tells Strategy
Texas Holdem Tips and Advice
We have pages devoted to Texas holdem tips and Texas holdem
advice, too. These are a great way to get introduced to some of
the more basic concepts in holdem.
We can provide you with a couple of quick pieces of advice
and a few tips, here, too:
You’ll find a lot of really great books with
in-depth treatments of poker strategy. The Theory of Poker by
David Sklansky is essential reading for any poker player,
regardless of which game you’re playing. Super/System by Doyle
Brunson (and others) is also worth reading, especially the
sections about limit and no limit holdem. Anything by Ed Miller
is worth your time, too. And those are just for starters. Expert
Texas holdem players are almost always well-read Texas holdem
players.
Tip #2: Take NotesIf you’re playing online, you should use the
note-taking function in the poker room software to take some
notes on your opponents. If you’re playing live, you should keep
a journal and write about what’s going on. You should keep book
on your opponents, but you should also track your results and
how you got them. Texas holdem is a thinking person’s game. Few
things clarify your thoughts on a subject better than writing
about it.
Good players bet and raise. Weak players
check and call. You can find loose aggressive players who are
profitable, and you can find tight aggressive players who are
profitable. What you can’t find are passive players who are
profitable. Loose passive players are calling stations, and they
lose money right and left. Tight passive players are rocks, and
they lose money, too—just more slowly than calling stations.
If you’re a beginner, you probably need to play
fewer hands. As you grow more proficient, you can play more
hands. You might even be the type of player who can succeed as a
loose aggressive player. But we don’t recommend that as a
starting goal. That’s something to experiment with once you’ve
mastered tight aggressive play.
If you’re new to the game, play for stakes you
can easily afford. Microlimits online are a great place to
start. If you’re playing live, start with the lowest stakes
limit games you can play. You can move up in stakes as your
bankroll grows and as you become more confident in your skills
as a player.
Find some buddies who can talk intelligently about
playing Texas holdem, even if they’re only online buddies. You
can find excellent discussions of poker strategy on various
forums. Two Plus Two is one of our favorites, although they’re
not as friendly toward newcomers as we would hope.
Being detached from the outcome of each hand is a
crucial mental skill that many players can’t master. If you’re
getting mad about results all the time, you’re going to have a
hard time playing correctly. How do you become detached from the
outcomes? Pat yourself on the back for making the correct play,
regardless of the results. You might also spend some time
studying meditation techniques. These can help you get your
emotions under control.
There are no advantages to being drunk at the
poker table. Alcohol impairs your judgment, period. It’s better
to just stay sober. We know players who “pretend” to be drunk at
the table in order to take advantage of other players. But most
of them are not really pretending. If you smell like booze,
you’re probably drunk.
A lot of players try clever fancy
moves at the poker table because they’ve watched too many
episodes of World Poker Tour. Here’s the secret about those
shows: they’re heavily edited. Most poker hands are boring in
the extreme. They show you the most exciting ones. But it’s easy
to get confused and think poker is played one way based on what
you’ve seen on television, but it ain’t necessarily that way in
real life.
Texas Holdem Strategy Reddit Streams
We mentioned this before, but Texas holdem is a
thinking person’s game. If you want to succeed, you need to pay
attention to what’s going on, even when you’re not involved in
the hand—which is going to be most of the time, because most of
the time you won’t have playable cards. Think about the numbers.
Think about what cards the other players might have when they’re
making their decisions. This will go a long way toward improving
your game.
Our best Texas holdem advice?
Don’t get suckered into thinking you’re a great player just
because you’re on a winning streak. This is the biggest mistake
most new players make. Texas holdem is a high variance game.
That means luck is a big factor.
Advanced Strategy
We have an entire section devoted to advanced strategy for
Texas holdem players. We won’t get into a lot of detail about
advanced tactics on this page, but we will say that advanced
strategies only start to matter when you’re playing other expert
players.
You don’t need advanced strategy to beat novice players.
Solid ABC poker is good enough to beat novice players.
But once you start dealing with thoughtful, expert players
with lots of experience, you have to start taking things like
game theory into account. You have to start bluffing and
semi-bluffing occasionally. Deception becomes more important.
(We also have a section explaining Texas holdem and game
theory.)
Raising with your good hands and folding your bad hands is
good enough to win when you’re playing novices, but when you’re
dealing with advanced players, you need a more multi-dimensional
approach.
Cheats, Cheaters, and Cheating
We don’t recommend cheating at Texas holdem. It’s an easy
enough game to beat if you play honestly—if you’re willing to do
the work of becoming an expert player. And the risk-reward ratio
for cheaters is awful.
In fact, we’re firmly convinced that cheating at gambling is
a bad idea for lots of reasons. Karma is one of the significant
ones.
If you don’t want to get cheated, don’t try to cheat other
players. Being a good player is more fun and more satisfying,
anyway.
And there’s not much risk involved in becoming an expert
player.
Bluffing and Semi-Bluffing
New players think that bluffing is a more important part of
Texas holdem strategy than it actually is. There are several
things to keep in mind about bluffing. Most of them just flat
out have to do with the math.
Let’s look at an example of a situation where you might want
to bluff:
The first player to act bets. The 2nd player to act raises.
Player 3 re-raises. A couple of players fold, so now it’s your
turn to bet. (This is preflop.)
Trying to bluff these 3 players doesn’t make a lot of sense
from a mathematical standpoint. They’ve all indicated a strong
hand—sure, one of them might be bluffing, but all 3 of them?
Unlikely.
After all, the good cards have to be somewhere.
Let’s look at another situation. You’re the last person to
act before the blinds, and everyone has checked. (Again, this is
preflop.)
You fire off a raise.
But you don’t have good cards. You’re just hoping that
everyone else has weak cards.
What are the odds that the player in the small blind, the
player in the big blind, and all the other players who checked
have weaker hands than you do? And even then, what are the odds
that if they all have weaker hands that they’re all going to
fold? Or that some of them won’t improve?
You then have to compare those odds with how much you’re
going to get paid off if they do all fold. There would have to
be a lot of money in the pot.
Let’s say you assume that each of these 4 players at the
table have a 50% chance of folding in the face of your raise.
50% X 50% X 50% X 50% = 6.25%. That’s the probability that
they’ll all fold in the face of your raise. That’s about 15 to
1.
So to make that a profitable bluff, you’d need to have at
least 15 units in the pot for every unit you bet. With that much
money in the pot, even some of the less sophisticated players
are going to stay in just in case their longshot comes through
for them.
Semi-bluffing, on the other hand, often makes a lot more
sense. This is when you bet and/or raise even though you
probably don’t have the best hand, but you still have a chance
at drawing to the best hand.
An example of this is when you have 4 cards to a flush on the
flop. You figure your opponent has a high pair. He’s the
favorite to win, but when you add together the chance that
you’ll outdraw him with the chance that he’ll fold in the face
of your bet/raise, you have a positive expectation situation.
You have a 33% chance of hitting your flush (roughly). But
suppose you also have a 30% chance of him folding. You don’t
need a lot of money in the pot to make that a bet worth making.
We have an entire page devoted to the subject of bluffing and
semi-bluffing, too.
Cash Game Strategy
Earlier we mentioned that there’s a difference between
tournament strategy and cash game strategy. We want to reiterate
that here and point you toward that section of our site.
Your goal when playing in cash games is to maximize the
amount of money you win per hour. That might seem obvious, but
when you’re mapping out a specific strategy for a specific game,
you need to start with what winning looks like. In cash games,
it means maximizing the amount won on average per hour.
Contrast this with strategy during a tournament. Your goal
isn’t to maximize the number of chips you win per hour. Your
goal is to maximize your return on investment on the entry fee.
The chips have no real value. Another way to look at it is to
say that the value of the chips varies based on where you are in
the tournament.
If you’re “on the bubble”, which means that almost everyone
has been eliminated except for the players who are going to land
in the money, a short stack of chips might be “worth” a lot more
than your starting stack of chips.
This has interesting implications for your playing strategy.
Coaches, Coaching, Trainers, and Training – Where to Get
Texas Holdem Lessons
We’re not convinced that everyone needs a poker coach.
Coaching is probably not a bad idea if you’re serious about your
game, though. The distinction between a Texas holdem coach and a
trainer is probably not great—we don’t know of any training that
differs in any significant way from coaching. In fact, we’re
confident in saying that the two words are synonymous in this
context.
Where to get Texas holdem lessons?
We’re not convinced that you need them, but if you’re looking
for a poker coach who gives lessons, we suggest taking a look at
some of the more reputable poker forums online. Get to know some
of the players there, develop some relationships, and when you
start to get comfortable with some of these folks, ask someone
for a recommendation.
We offer more observations and tips about finding poker
coaches and lessons on a page devoted specifically to that
topic.
When to Fold in Texas Holdem
Really you can ask multiple questions about betting options
in Texas holdem:
- When should you fold?
- When should you bet?
- When should you call?
- When should you check?
- When should you raise?
- When should you bluff?
None of these questions, including “when should you fold”,
have definitive answers. Some situations are clear folds—if
you’re out of position before the flop and you have 27 offsuit,
you should probably fold. If you’re in late position facing lots
of callers, and you have pocket aces, you should almost
certainly raise.
The goal is to get your money into the middle of the table
when it’s a positive expectation move to do so.
The other goal is to avoid putting money into the pot when
it’s a negative expectation move to do so.
We go into a lot more detail about when to fold in Texas
holdem on our main page.
Conclusion
Texas holdem is a lot of fun. Luck’s a big factor, but Texas
holdem strategy is the difference between long term winning and
long term losing.
We’re constantly expanding this section. Entire books have
been written about some of these concepts. We’ve tried to
provide comprehensive explanations of each off these concepts,
but we might have left out a detail here or there.
If you see a mistake we’ve made, or if you think we should
add something to cover the subject more completely, please
contact us and let us know.
The goal for these posts is to explain the essence of what these activities are and how they work. This post is meant to introduce the novice to the game of Texas holdem and also to explain how the game works so well that even an expert might learn something from it.
In Texas holdem, the board (the community cards) consists of 7 face-up card. These aren’t all dealt at once, though—they’re dealt in phases, with betting rounds in between. You get to use any combination of your hole cards with the community cards to create your hand.
This means you can use 2 cards from your hand and 3 cards from the board, 1 card from your hand and 4 cards from the board, or just play 5 cards from the board.
The rest of this post goes into more detail about how to play Texas holdem and how to play it well.
As I discussed in the post about poker, one of the integral aspects of the game is the betting. Without betting, it ain’t poker.
In all poker games, you have forced bets. These are bets players must make to stay in the game. Withou these forced bets, you wouldn’t have any action. Players would just fold until they got a hand they figured was the nuts.
In most other poker games, these forced bets take the form of antes, which are small bets everyone must place before getting a hand.
The players to the left of the dealer place the small blind and the big blind, respectively.
As the dealer position orbits the table, so do the blinds.
Every orbit, you’ll pay the small blind once and the big blind once, and so will all the other players at the table.
For example, if you’re playing in a $4/$8 Texas holdem game, the blinds are usually $2 (for the small blind) and $4 (for the big blind).
The Betting Structure Varies Based on Which Version of Texas Holdem You’re Playing
The order in which you bet doesn’t change based on the version, but the size of your bets does. In limit holdem, you must place bets in increments that are pre-determined.
In the example above, the bets must be made in increments of $4 in the first 2 rounds of the game and in increments of $8 in the final 2 rounds of the game.
But many Texas holdem games are played in pot limit or no limit format. In a pot limit game, the maximum size of your bet is equal to the amount of money in the pot.
In a no limit game, you can bet all the chips in front of you any time it’s your turn to bet.
At least this is true when you look at limit versus pot limit or limit versus no limit. Pot limit and no limit are similar enough that the strategies are often more or less the same.
This becomes more obvious when you start looking at books about poker strategy. A book about limit holdem reads very differently from a book about no limit strategy.
But most of the advice in a no limit Texas holdem game would apply equally to a pot limit game.
In a home version of the game, the person with the deck of cards is the dealer. She gets to deal one hand, then the deal moves to the person on her left. This continues around the table without end.
If you’re playing in a casino, a cardroom employee deals the cards for you. You track the location of the dealer position for purposes of who places the blinds by using a plastic disk called a dealer button. (It even has the word “dealer” printed on it.)
I played in a home game Saturday night where they were using the dealer button as well as the deck of cards to track the dealer position. I thought that was silly, but it also meant I was playing with some less sophisticated players, which is usually good for my bankroll.
A hand of Texas holdem plays out over the following rounds:
- Pre-Flop
- The Flop
- The Turn
- The River
Pre-Flop is the round of betting that takes place after everyone gets their first 2 hole cards. You’re betting on the strength of these cards without the benefit of having seen the flop or any of the community cards.
The Flop is when the dealer flips over the first 3 cards of the community cards. They’re supposed to be flipped over all at the same time, by the way, not one at a time.
The Turn is when the dealer flips over the 4th of the 5 community cards.
The River is when the dealer flips over the 5th (and final) card on the board.
In all Texas holdem games, you have minimum bet sizes during the first 2 rounds and minimum bet sizes during the second 2 rounds. This means you can bet the lower amounts during the pre-flop and flop stages, but you must bet the higher amounts after the turn and the river.
In a limit game where the limits are $4/$8, you’d need to bet $4 minimum during the first 2 rounds and $8 minimum during the next 2 rounds. If you want to make a raise, you would need to raise at least that amount, too.
In a pot limit or no limit game, you still must make the minimum bets for those rounds, but you have the option to bet more. If you want to raise, you must raise at least the size of the previous bet.
For example, if someone bets $20, and you want to raise, you must raise by $20 minimum. It doesn’t matter what the blinds or the minimum bets are at that point.
If you want to play in the hand at all pre-flop, you must at least call the big blind. That means you must post a bet the same size as that big blind. You also have the option of raising or folding.
After the flop, you also have the option of checking, which means you’re not folding, but you’re not betting into the pot, either.
How the Game Plays Out Each Hand
During each phase of the game is a round of betting. If everyone but one player folds, that player wins the pot by default. If more than one player is still involved in the hand at the end of the betting, you have a showdown.
During the showdown, you compare your best possible 5-card hand with your opponents’, and the best 5-card hand wins the money in the pot. In the event of a tie, the amount of money in the pot is split between the players who tied.
All the Texas holdem games I’ve ever played in were played “cards speak.” This means that even if you don’t recognize your best possible poker hand, you still get credit for the best possible hand you can make.
Some players win a lot of money at Texas holdem by betting and raising relentlessly against weaker opponents who are too willing to fold. Other players lost a lot of money by checking and calling consistently when they don’t have strong hands.
I’ll have more to say about that in the next few sections, which are all about Texas holdem strategies.
Most people who’ve been paying attention already know that poker is a game of skill as well as chance. In any extended period of time, the player with more skill will eventually win all the money. That’s because over time, everyone gets the same number of good hands and bad hands.
No one has written a definitive guide to strategy for all kinds of Texas holdem games. It’s not like blackjack; the game hasn’t been “solved.” That’s because, by its nature, Texas holdem is a game of incomplete information.
You don’t know what cards are going to be dealt on the future rounds. You also don’t know what cards your opponents are holding.
There’s only one situation in Texas holdem where the best possible play is a certainty—you should always bet and raise preflop with aces.
But even that is up for debate and nuance. Since pocket aces are the best possible hand in Texas holdem at that point in the game, you should always want to get as much of your money and your opponents’ money in the pot as possible.
But how to do that?
Which would be the perfect situation?
You don’t know what your opponents are going to do.
And that uncertainty gets even greater when you’re dealing with a hand that’s not as good as a pair of aces in the hole.
Which brings me to the next point I want to make about Texas holdem strategy:
The best Texas holdem strategy is to play a limited number of hands before the flop and fold the rest. The idea is that you want to get your money into the pot when you have the best of it, and you want to avoid putting money in the pot when you don’t.
David Sklansky suggests that the Fundamental Theorem of Poker is this:
Every time you act in the same way you would if you knew what your opponents’ hidden cards are, you gain. Every time you act in a different than you would if you knew what your opponent was holding, you lose.
But it also means that you should bet and raise heavily when you have strong cards, and check or fold when you have weak cards.
If you have strong cards, they’re more likely to be better than your opponents’. If you knew that for a certainty, you would, of course, bet and/or raise.
If you have weak cards, they’re more likely to bet worse than your opponents’. If you knew that for a certainty, you would almost always fold.
It’s the hands in the middle that give you the most trouble.
You don’t have to memorize a chart or table outlining the strength of the various possible Texas holdem hands. You can, instead, think of these starting hands in terms of their categories.
Basic Texas Holdem Strategy Reddit
Big pairs are pocket pairs of 10 or higher. These hands usually play well from any position at the table. (I’ll have more to say about position in the next section, so stick around and read all the way through this post.)
Medium and small pairs are pairs of 9s or lower. These hands play well from middle to late position, and they usually play better with more people in the pot.
That’s because you want a lot of money in the pot on the rare occasion that you hit 3 of a kind on the flop.
Suited connectors are cards that are adjacent to each other in ranking and are also of the same suit. You have the potential to make a flush or a straight with these cards. The higher these cards are in ranking, the better.
Most suited connectors where the higher card is 9 or less are speculative at best, but if you have at least one 10 or better, you have a solid speculative hand.
They don’t have to be immediately adjacent, either, although their value drops the further the 2 cards are from each other in rank. For example, 10-J suited is a better starting hand than 8-10 suited.
Big-little suited is a hand with an ace or a king in it and another lower-ranked card of the same suit. This includes AK and AQ, which are both more-or-less monsters when they’re suited.
It also includes hands as speculative as A-2 or A-3 suited, which are speculative in the extreme—you need to hit 2 pair or a solid flush draw on the flop to continue in the hand unless you’re bluffing.
AK and AQ are playable if they’re not suited, too, but big cards lose a lot of value when they’re not suited. AJ is really speculative and needs to hit you flop and later rounds really hard if you want to continue in the hand and win.
Most other hands aren’t really playable. The rule of thumb is that big pairs can sometimes win pots if you can thin the field with your bets and raises, but the other hands, being more speculative, need to hit the flop before you should continue with the hand.
Earlier I talked about players who lose a lot of money because they call a lot of bets when they shouldn’t. These players are examples of loose, passive players.
A loose player is one who plays in a lot of hands—she doesn’t fold often enough. A tight player is one who folds a lot and only plays strong hands.
A passive player is one who checks and calls a lot. An aggressive player, on the other hand, is one who bets and raises a lot. Aggressive players tend to do better, because they win money when their opponents fold.
They also win bigger pots when they win, because they’re forcing their opponents to put money in the pot.
Players can also be loose and aggressive. Some players in some games succeed well with such an approach. They win so much money from their opponents’ folding in the face of their aggression that they can afford to lose some pots when their hands don’t hit.
Loose, passive players are the best opponents you can hope for. They’ll pay you off repeatedly by putting money into the pot with sub-standard holdings and never put pressure on you to make a hard decision.
Your goal is to be a tight, aggressive player. You won’t play many hands, but when you get cards, you’ll bet and raise with those hands. That’s a winning approach to Texas holdem.
In fact, it’s a winning approach to almost any poker variation.
I left the most important aspect of Texas holdem strategy for last—position.
This refers to when you act during the game. The location of the dealer button and the blinds determines your position.
The first player to the left of the big blind makes the first decision pre-flop. After the flop, the first player to the left of the dealer button makes the first decision.
This is early position.
From early position, you need stronger hands to warrant playing. You have less information about your opponents and what they’re planning to do from early position.
On the other hand, if you’re in late position, you have much more information about how many players are in the pot and what the strength of their hands might be.
You can play more hands from late position, because you’ll also get to see what you opponents are going to do when they see the flop and later phases of the hand.
Conclusion
Texas holdem poker is the most popular version of poker played in the United States. If you’ve never played, it can be confusing at first.
You should try some of the free online versions of Texas holdem before playing for any kind of meaningful stakes.
What did you learn about the essence of Texas holdem that you didn’t already know from this post?