Texas Holdem Poker Strategy

by Randy Ray

This article contains some basic concepts about Texas holdem poker strategy. Most basic Texas holdem strategy concepts boil down to one idea: getting your money in the pot in a favorable situation.

Tight is Right - Preflop Texas Hold'em Strategy

Tight play is good play, no matter what variation of poker you play. In Texas holdem, tight play means that you're dropping out of the pot (folding) before the flop. For beginners, "supertight" might even be better than "tight". "Supertight" Texas holdem means you're playing even fewer hands preflop than a tight player.

Phil Hellmuth suggests that a beginning Texas holdem player should start off by limiting herself to the top 10 starting hands. These starting hands are any pair of 7's or better, plus AK and AQ. In some really low limit games with bad players, playing this tight preflop will almost assure you of being a winning player, since you'll be ahead of some of your opponents when you get a lot of money in preflop. (Hellmuth suggests raising with any of these hands preflop in any situation. He's wrong; you should analyze your situation and play appropriately. Raising with 77 in the face of a raise, a re-raise, and a 2nd re-raise is just folly.)

Being selective about which hands you play preflop is 1 way of getting your money in the pot when you're getting the best of it.

Fit or Fold - Tight is Still Right - Texas Holdem Strategy on the Flop

"Fit or fold" is a way of saying that if the flop doesn't fit your 2 hold cards, you should fold the hand. An example of a flop that doesn't fit your hand would be when you flop AKQ and have a pair of 7's in the hole. Any player with a single ace, king or queen has you beat, so folding this hand on the flop is a good idea. (Players like high cards, so the chances of someone having you beat in this situation are pretty good.)

On the other hand, if you're playing AK preflop, and the same flop comes down, you have the top 2 pair. This is a good hand, so you should bet and raise with it, to get more money in the pot.

Drawing Hands and Pot Odds

Sometimes you'll flop a really great draw, like 4 cards to a flush. If you're playing tight preflop, you'll almost always be drawing the nut flush, with the ace high. So you'll need to make your decision about whether or not to keep playing and putting money in the pot based on the "pot odds".

Pot odds is a fancy term for the ratio of money in the pot to what it would cost you to call and play the hand. In the case where you have 4 to a flush, you have 9 cards left in the deck (out of 47) that can complete your flush. Since you're getting 2 more cards, you have approximately a 2 to 1 shot at hitting your flush. So to play in the hand, you need to be getting at least 2 chips in the pot for every chip you're having to put into the pot to see another card.

So if the pot is $5, and it will cost you $5 to see another card, you're only getting even odds on your money, but you only have a 1 in 3 shot at winning. That's a negative expectation bet and you should fold.

On the other hand, if the pot is $30, and it's going to cost you $5 to see another card, you're potentially getting paid 6 to 1 on your 2 to 1 shot. That's a profitable situation.

Only playing the flop when it fits your hand is another way of getting your money into the pot when you're getting the best of it.

Player Types

You should pay attention to the other players at the table and try to determine their general playing style. For example, someone who plays very few hands preflop, and who usually only calls when he does play a hand, is considered a "rock". (A rock is a tight-passive player.) When a rock raises a hand preflop, it almost always means that he's got your pocket jacks beat, and folding is probably a good idea.

On the other hand, a player who's playing in about half the pots and raising every hand she plays preflop is a loose aggressive player, or a "maniac". If you're playing pocket jacks against this type of player, it might make sense to either re-raise or call her preflop raise with those pocket jacks. She might have you beat, but given what you know about her playing style, you're liable to have her beat as often as not.

Understanding what kinds of players you're up against helps you get your money in the pot when you're getting the best of it. You can read more about this concept in this article about poker player tendencies.

Position

Position is a critical element in Texas holdem decisions. If you're early to act in a round, then you don't have a chance to see what most of the other players at the table are going to do, which puts you at a disadvantage. Say you're playing 77 from under the gun. (You're 1st to act, in other words.) If you get a raise and 2 re-raisers behind you, then you might need to fold that hand. If you were in late position, you would have seen that raise and the 2 re-raisers ahead of time and saved yourself a bet by folding before you had money in the pot.

You always want to be able to see what the other players are going to do before making your own decision. So the appropriate strategy is to play tighter in early position, and then loosen up a little bit in later position, since you'll have more information and be able to make better decisions.

Texas Holdem Tips and Advice

This article doesn't scratch the surface of Texas holdem strategy. Limiting yourself to the top 10 starting hands is going to limit your ability to make a profit, especially when there are so many cool hands like suited connectors that can be profitable in certain situations. Betting limits also have a big effect on appropriate strategy, and the advice and tips for pot limit or no limit holdem players can be dramatically different from the advice and tips for limit players. Future articles will cover some of these subjects in more detail.

See also:

• How to Play Pocket Jacks Preflop in a No Limit Texas Holdem Game