Texas holdem betting strategies

Aggression is one of the keys to success in poker for one simple reason: When you bet or raise, you have two ways to win the pot — either your opponent folds or you get to showdown with the best hand. Unfortunately, when a player is passive there is only one way to win the pot — by having the best hand. This difference is hugely important and is the reason all big winners are aggressive poker players; while most losing poker players are quite passive.

Preflop poker strategy Tip 3: Take the initiative and be aggressive. The four playing styles In total there are four player styles: Tight-Aggressive TAg — This player type which makes up the majority of the winning player pool. They wait for strong hands and bet and raise them hard, punishing other players who play weaker styles.

Loose-Aggressive LAg — successful loose aggressive players are few and far between. They play lots of hands and play them very aggressively. It is a tough style to play but also a tough style to combat! Tight-Passive — this player type does not play very many hands and when they do the play them by calling and checking frequently. These players lose their money slowly but surely.

They are the complete opposite of tight-aggressive. This player type is the biggest loser and where the big winners make their money. So what hands should you play? That is a difficult question to answer since it depends on many factors — what position you are in, how many opponents are on the table , how likely your opponents are to raise, the equity of your hand, how many BB you have and how many hands you have been raising recently.

Starting Hand Types However, there are some basic starting hands that you should almost always be playing: Premium Hands There are very few premium hands in poker but when we do get these hands we should be trying to build a pot as big as possible and as quickly as possible.

AK is considered to be a powerful hand because: It dominates all other strong non-paired hands e. These hand should always be raised and often re-raised to begin building the pot. Strong Hands Strong hands are hands you should also always be raised when first entering the pot. These hands should be called when someone has already raised before you. Large suited and connected hands such as QJs, JTs, are also considered strong hands. Suited hands derive their strength from being able to make flushes.

However, do not overestimate the value of suited hands. The value of a hand is derived from the combination of the ranks of the two hole cards. Medium Strength Hands You need to be careful of this hand type. These hands can make you a big winner if correctly played, but when incorrectly played can cost you lots of chips. Medium suited connectors such as 87s are also considered to be medium-strength hands.

You will play different hands from various starting positions. Summary Of Preflop Texas Holdem Strategy In summary, preflop you should: You should play a small percentage of the hands you are dealt. Never limp.

Take the initiative and be aggressive. If all you take from this section is these four points you will still have significantly improved your chances of winning. When you play weak hands from poor positions poker is quite difficult; nobody likes to play Q7 from out of position Out of position means you act first, so your opponent will have more information than you!

However, if you play only a narrow range of hands from good starting positions, as is recommended, poker will become a much simpler prospect. Postflop, there are many factors which we must take into account before we make a decision. The number of variables makes each decision quite complicated for a beginner.

However, there are a few guidelines and concepts which can be understood which will help you in the decision-making process. We will cover this in more detail in Position is king. Secondly, we should be considering what our opponent may be holding. Does our opponent have only strong hands if he is a tight player?

See more on how to hand read. But it is important as a new player to begin thinking about what your opponent may have. Do not only consider the hand you are holding. Postflop poker strategy Tip 1: Always consider what your opponent could be holding. Next, we should consider the board texture. For example, is the board likely to have improved your hand or your competitors?

Is the board likely to change very much on the turn or river? These considerations will be detailed further on in this guide. Another consideration is how many players made it to the flop. If the flop is heads up only you and your opponent the strength of each hand is much better than if five or even six people made it to the flop.

The more players that see the flop, turn, and river the less likely you are to win a showdown with a weak holding such as one pair. For more information on the differences between multiway and heads up pots, head over to pokernews. Postflop poker strategy Tip 2: The more players there are in the hand, the less likely you are to win and the weaker your holding. Finally, we need to consider how many chips are in the pot, how much we have left behind in our stack and how many chips our opponent has.

After these considerations, we can make a decision on how we are going to proceed in the hand. In some cases, pictures will be used to show board textures, but often just text will be employed. When describing the board with text i. It is sometimes shortened further to 5K5r.

When the flop has a flush draw i. There are many types of boards, but in general, they can be broken down into two types: dry board textures and wet board textures. Dry Board Texture Dry board textures are ones which the players in the hand are less likely to have connected with the community cards. Also, dry also means a board which the strength of your holding is unlikely to change over the course of the hand. Examples of dry board textures are: Why are these boards considered dry?

If for example, you held KQ, then the only way your opponent can now beat you is if he has: If for example, you held KQ, then the only way your opponent can now beat you is if he has: An Ax e. Ace-Queen or Ace-Seven hand and hits an ace on the turn or river. A pocket pair such as 77 which hits his set on the turn or river unlikely. A hand such as QJ which hits a runner-runner straight two cards in a row — for example, the turn is a Ten, and the river is an Ace resulting a straight Ten to Ace or runner runner full house two Queens or two Jacks.

The most important factor is that neither of these two board has many straight-draw or flush-draw possibilities. The lack of draws means that if you have a hand like A5 on the K55 board or 44 on the board you are very unlikely to be beaten by your opponent if he is behind on the flop. Additionally, dry flops are inherently difficult to hit and hence makes continuation betting as the pre-flop raiser you raised first, and someone called your raise especially useful on dry boards.

Continuations bets will be detailed further on in this section. Wet board texture On the other hand, wet board textures are boards where the board is very likely to change over future streets. Looking at the QT9s board, there are many cards which will modify the strength of many hands. If we have AQ or TT on this board we have a strong hand; but on many turn cards such as a K, J, 8 or any heart, the strength of these hands will significantly degrade. Also, there are many hand types that your opponent may have hit this board with: Any 8 or K is an inside straight draw 4 cards will complete the straight.

Any J is an open-ended straight draw 8 cards will make a straight The majority of opponents plays Queens, Tens, and Nines. Therefore, your opponent is likely to continue with a large proportion of his hands on this board.

We can directly translate all these points to the s board; except for the last as this board has cards of lower ranks. On the s board, however, every Ace has an inside straight draw. Aces will be played quite frequently by most opponents. Every other board type will be somewhere in between the dry K55r and the wet QT9s. Understanding how wet or dry a board is and adjusting your strategy correctly is the key skill at play in this scenario.

For more information on board textures, see this excellent article. Continuation betting A continuation bet, as its name suggests, is when you follow up on your previous aggressive action with another bet. For example, you raise pre-flop and then continue to bet on the flop. Continuation bets are extremely useful postflop poker strategy for two reasons: It is tough to connect with most board types; therefore player who bets first will often win the pot The player who last raised pre-flop will typically have the strongest hands; thus will get the benefit of the doubt when he bets again.

The rate at which you continuation bet should be, on a very basic level, determined by the wetness of the board. The dryer the board, the less likely your opponent hit and therefore the more often we will want to bet so that we can take down the pot. But we should also be more prone to bet when we have a chance to win the pot when called. In other words, we have pot equity in the form of a draw or overcards. Postflop poker strategy Tip 3: The dryer a board texture, the more likely we are to win the pot by continuation betting cbet.

On the flop of 9h7s3s, we have an inside straight draw and two overcards. This board is ranked medium for wetness and how the opponent connects; our opponent can have a few straight and flush draws as well as top pairs. JTs is a good hand in this situation as we can make robust pairs on the turn and river and also can make the nut straight.

Thus this is a good spot for a cbet as a bluff. We expect him to fold hands which are better than ours. However, if he does continue, we have a good chance of making a stronger hand with a J, T or 8. All of these 3 main types of bets will be elaborated upon in this section. Furthermore, by checking, you can additionally allow your opponent to bluff. It also allows you to potentially extract more money if your plan is to check-raise! Bluffing Bluffing is an important part of poker because it always keeps your opponents guessing as to whether or not you have a good hand.

They are also likely to be able to deduce from previous betting action in a hand whether or not they might be ahead or behind their opponents by this point, in terms of hand strength. Instead, the number of bluff combinations will depend on how many hands you choose to value bet with and the size of bet you choose to use. More on this later. In general, good hand candidates to select for your bluffs might fall under one or both of the following trait An extremely weak hand that has very little chance of winning at showdown i.

While you should aim to play a good portion of these draws aggressively, doing this with all of your draw combinations will almost certainly have you bluffing at an incorrect frequency. As a general rule of thumb, you should aim to bluff or semi-bluff at the following frequencies throughout a poker hand: FLOP: 2 to 2.

While there are easily accessible online charts and poker solvers that players can use to help build their preflop ranges see our GTO preflop ranges are a lot more variables that come into play once the flop and community cards are dealt, which means what course of betting action you should take for your specific hand is not always so cut-and-dry. How Much To Bet In Poker: Bet Sizing Guidelines In conjunction with selecting what hands you want to bet with, you also want to consider what bet sizing you will want to use.

The optimal sizing of bet that you can make in poker is one that maximises your expected value EV ; in other words, the one that will net you the most winnings in the long run. What makes bet sizes big or small? As for what makes a bet large or small, this is determined by how big your bet is in relation to the current size of the pot. What does the size of the bet usually mean? Larger-sized bets often suggest a polarised hand range, meaning that player will either have a very strong hand or a bluff.

The smaller a bet is, the wider range of value hands a player should bet with and the fewer number of bluffs they should have. If you notice your opponent deviating from this principal, it will be important to adapt appropriately in order to counteract this. How will your opponents respond to different bet sizes? Because in theory when you use a smaller bet sizing, you are able to bet with more hand combinations than if you used a larger-sized bet, good opponents will counter appropriately by having a wide continuing range as well.

By a similar note, if you bet large, then these same players only continue in the hand with a smaller, narrower range. What if my opponents do not react differently to bets of varying sizes? Against these opponents, you cannot manipulate their continuing ranges like other players, but you can certainly use this knowledge to exploit them by betting smaller with your bluffs and larger with your value hands.

River Bet Sizing: Theoretically speaking, with regards to bet sizing on the river, you should be bluffing with the same frequency your opponent should be calling with, based on pot odds. Imagine this: you have the best possible hand on the river and you want to make a bet. BLUFFING There are 4 core concepts to take into account when deciding upon bet sizing for bluffs and whether or not to follow-through with it: You should bet the smallest amount as possible that will still achieve the desired result of getting your opponent to fold exploitative strategy.

In some instances, your opponent will be ready to fold his hand to any size of bet, so if you think this is the case, use a small bet to get him to fold so that you can scoop up the pot yourself.

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