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Most Texas holdem books and strategy web sites are filled
with general advice aimed at beginning and intermediate players.
If you think about this it makes sense, because over 90% of the
population of poker players fit into one of these categories.

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It’s also much easier to offer advice to the larger group
because most of the players are so far from playing correctly
that you can help them get huge increases in their results if
you can get them to adjust their game in a few simple ways.

When you start looking for advanced Texas holdem strategy
advice you can’t find much, and what you do find rarely goes
beyond the things being taught to low limit players.

The bottom line is that advanced Texas holdem strategy is
hard to teach and it’s hard to learn. Most players can’t handle
the concepts needed to excel at the top levels of play and will
never dedicate enough time and work to getting to a place where
they can.

The Theory of Poker by David Sklansky is one of the most
important poker books that have ever been written. But if you
read it before you’re ready it may hurt you as much as help you.
I know this because I read it early in my poker career and it
didn’t help me at all. I went back a year later and read it
again and it was like a light bulb suddenly came on. I wasn’t
ready for the lessons the first time.

What you need to understand about the advice on this page is
that you may not be ready to fully utilize it in your play right
now. If you’re not, don’t feel bad or be ashamed. Simply come
back and read it again in a couple months and a couple months
after that until it starts sinking in.

And even the few that do reach a point where they can
completely grasp the lessons needed for advanced play have a
hard time finding someone to teach them. They usually have to
learn by trial and error at the tables. This can be costly, but
it helps reinforce the lessons as you learn them.

So if it’s so hard to learn these advanced strategies and so
few players need them, why would we dedicate an entire page to
them? Because in the quest to have the best Texas holdem
resource available if we didn’t have advice for advanced players
the quest would fall short.

We also are firm believers in providing as much solid
information as possible and letting the players figure out what
they can use and what they should wait on. If you can pick up
something in these advanced strategies to improve your game by
1% it can mean thousands and thousands of extra dollars to you
over the course of your poker career.

Psychology

At the simplest level of play Texas holdem is about math. You
use a deck of 52 playing cards and a set hierarchy of hand
values so you can determine hand probabilities and odds in any
situation. You don’t have complete information because you don’t
know what cards your opponents hold, but you can even use
mathematical equations to consider what you don’t know and still
come up with the best play from a mathematical standpoint in
every situation.

You can even use math to determine the best way to play a
hand before you even get your cards.

If you’re in the small blind and haven’t seen your cards yet
and don’t know anything about any of your opponents, the
mathematically correct way to play the hand is to fold. This is
based on studies that show on average you lose money from the
small blind with an average hand. If you haven’t seen your cards
yet you have to work on the assumption that you’ll have an
average hand.

As you get more information you use the new information to
determine the new best way to play the hand.

If you get your cards and look down to see pocket aces,
instead of folding being the most profitable way to play, you
need to raise in order to make the most money.

Any player without a learning disability who’s willing to put
in the time and effort can learn how to play Texas holdem at a
respectable level. You can learn how to determine the best plays
and if you work long enough and hard enough you can start
winning more than you lose at the Texas holdem tables.

This isn’t a guess or sales pitch. Plenty of players have
proven this is possible, and you can do what it takes to be a
winning player too. But if you’re not to this point yet you need
to start on some of our other strategy pages and come back to
this one later.

So why would we start a section about psychology with a math
lesson? The last time we checked math and psychology aren’t very
closely related.

After you master the mathematical part of Texas holdem and
are ready to advance to the highest levels of play you have to
start improving your psychological game.

You have to combine superior skill with the mathematical side
of the game with an advanced ability to think about the game and
your opponents at a deeper level than you’ve ever done before.

Have you ever heard that you need to play the players instead
of the cards or in addition to the cards?

This is what we mean about Texas holdem psychology. You have
to start playing the game beyond the basic levels. To do this
you have to consider not only how you think about the game but
how your opponents think and play and how everything that
happens changes the way they play and react.

Our strategy section includes a page
that’s dedicated to the subject of psychology in Texas holdem.

Playing Texas Holdem Like a Chess Match

If you hope to be a good chess player you have to be able to
consider the current situation, how every possible move will
change the possible future outcomes, and how things can change
how your opponent will react.

New players concentrate on the current move possibilities but
rarely think about the entire game, or even their next move.

As most player’s game improves they start considering how one
move might set up the next move or two, but thinking beyond one
or two moves deep is rare.

But the most advanced Texas holdem players think about every
decision and consider how it can alter and set up future
situations.

In a pot limit game it’s important to determine if you have a
hand where you want to build a big pot or one where you want to
limit the pot size. When you want to build a big pot you need to
make at least a small bet on each round because every bet and
call makes the possible bet on the turn and river bigger.

But if you have a drawing hand or other hand that requires a
lower commitment you want to avoid putting any money in the pot
on the early rounds so you can manage the risk verses possible
reward.

This sounds simple, but unless you consider how every action
is going to set up the end of the hand you’ll frequently find
that another player was able to manipulate the hand and pot size
to fit their long term goals, not yours.

Another example is how you play certain hands against
opponents who’re good enough to track your play. If you always
check to them on the river when you miss your draw they’ll learn
this is how you play and use it against you. They’ll start
betting on the river after you check even if they don’t have a
strong hand because you check every time you’re weak.

But you can also build this belief in this opponent and then
use it against them. Once they believe they know how you play
the river you can start betting sometimes when you miss your
draw, because they’ll fold good but not great hands because they
think you won’t bet without a good hand.

Take a few minutes and think of some of the situations where
thinking and planning like this can come into play.

When you start considering all of the possible applications
at the holdem tables you can start seeing why you need to start
thinking about poker like a chess game.

If you want to advance to the top levels of Texas
holdem play you need to start playing chess like poker, and more
importantly start thinking like a chess player instead of a
gambler.

It’s Not a Single Session, But It Is

Most poker players think about each time they sit down to
play Texas holdem as a single session. If they play for three
hours and then go do something else they had a single session.
This isn’t the way advanced Texas holdem players view the game.

Advanced players understand that you’re in the middle of one
lifelong Texas holdem game that doesn’t end until you die. It
doesn’t matter if you play six hours a day for eighteen straight
days, or sixteen hours a day for three days in a row, it’s all
just a small part of your single long session.

If you want to play at an advanced level you need to
constantly be concentrating on making the best possible plays
and putting yourself in the best possible situations to win the
most money. Of course this involves doing everything you can to
win during the current playing time, but your short term results
don’t mean anything as long as you’re making the best plays.

If you get all in with ace king against ace queen and your
opponent hits a queen and you lose a big pot it can make your
balance for the day negative, but it has nothing to do with your
long term profitability. You know that if you can get in that
situation often it leads directly to profit.

Your expected value in any situation is the average amount
you win or lose if you can play the exact same situation
hundreds of times. At the most basic level, being a long term
winner at the Texas holdem tables is simply about putting
yourself in more positive expected value situations than
negative ones.

Everything else takes care of itself if you do this. Nothing
else really matters because it’s a simple mathematical law that
shows if you do this you’ll win in the long run.

What most players call luck is just short term variance and
if you’re in a situation where your expected value is $10 every
time you play the situation, if you do it 100 times you’ll win
$1,000. Sometimes you’ll lose and sometimes you’ll win more or
less than $10, but in the long run the expected value always end
up where it’s supposed to.

So remember that being an advanced Texas holdem winner isn’t
about the short session, but about the life long session. Then
concentrate on setting up and exploiting positive expectation
situations as often as possible.

Big Hand Poker

Some players seem to win a lot of pots and others can sit
back and only win a few pots per day, but still show a long term
profit. How can they still turn a profit when they only win a
few hands in comparison to other players?

In a no limit Texas holdem game the blinds are $10 / $20 and
the average stack size is over $2,000. On average, you have to
post $100 per hour in blinds. The table is aggressive and has a
couple loose players. You play a six hour stint and play
extremely tight, looking for opportunities to win big pots while
letting the other players fight over smaller pots.

This is a perfect situation to illustrate the big pot way to
long term profit. Even if you folded every blind for the entire
six hour stint and were able to break even on the few smaller
pots you play, you still have the chance to win big. Folding all
of your blinds costs $600, so you have to win enough to overcome
this. Let’s look at three big hand possibilities.

You see a flop with two other players, you have the ace and
queen of clubs and the flop is king of clubs, jack of clubs, and
10 of hearts. You bet, one opponent folds and the other moves
all in. You call and your opponent turns over an ace queen as
well. Most of the time you’re going to split this spot, but when
you hit your flush you scoop the entire pot.

The next hand is when an early position player raises and you
raise with pocket aces from late position. One of the blinds
calls, the early position player moves all in, you call, and the
blind folds. The early position player has a pair of kings and
you win a huge pot.

On the third hand six players see the flop in an un-raised
pot, including you from the big blind. You flop a straight, five
through nine, so it’s not easy to determine you have such a
strong hand. You’re able to build and win a nice pot, but aren’t
able to get anyone all in.

Even if you only split the first pot, stacked a short stack
of $800 on the second hand won $400 on the third hand your
profit for the day is $600. That’s $100 an hour and all you had
to do was break even on small hands and win a couple big hands.

And the up side is huge. What if you won the freeroll for
$2,000 and won $2,000 on the second hand and won $1,000 on the
third hand? All of these are possible with average stack sizes
of $2,000. Now you won $4,400 for the day, or over $700 per
hour.

What about if you had terrible luck on the smaller pots and
only was able to win one big pot? Let’s say you lost your $600
in blinds and another $1,000 on small pots. But you still were
able to double up, winning $2,000 on a single big pot. You still
make $400 for the six hours.

Of course it sounds simple enough for anyone to do it when
it’s spelled out like this, but don’t you think it’s realistic
that you can find a single big hand to win in a six hour playing
stint?

You just saw how you can still make good money playing Texas
holdem by only winning one or two big pots a day, so why aren’t
you playing in a manner that gives you the best chance to win?
Why are you playing so many marginal hands?

If you can play a smart patient game you can
greatly increase your long term profits. Now that you see how
profitable this type of game can be, hopefully you can use this
information to play fewer hands and take advantage of the
players who play too many hands.

Win the War, Forget the Battles

This goes hand in hand with the last section, but it’s so
important if you truly want to learn advanced strategies that it
needs to be covered in more depth or at least in a different
way.

It doesn’t matter how many hands you win. The only thing that
matters is how much money you win.

This doesn’t change anything that we discussed in the single
session section. You still have to consistently put yourself in
positive expectation situations but too many players focus on
winning hands instead of money.

If you ask them what they want to do they always state they
want to win money, but their actions at the table suggest
they’re more interested in winning hands than money.

Of course you have to win some hands to win money, but would
you rather win 10 hands worth $100 each or one hand worth
$1,200?

This is a mindset that you have to develop and work on if you
want to use it to your advantage. Good poker players are
competitive and want to win everything they touch. It’s easy,
even for the best players, to get too focused on winning every
hand instead of winning the most money.

The problem with focusing on winning every hand is you start
making plays that aren’t the most profitable in the long run.
When you miss your draw instead of folding and conserving your
money for a more favorable situation you fire a bluff hoping you
can force your opponent to fold because you want to win the pot.

Chips Are Limited Resources

Blind play has been mentioned a few times, and it plays such
an important role to winning poker players that an advanced
strategy page needs to at least touch on it. Even though this
section isn’t titled with anything that looks like it has to do
with blinds, they’re a perfect example of the concept that chips
are limited resources.

To play a winning game of Texas holdem you have to have an
amount of money to risk in order to win some money. If you run
out of chips you can’t win more chips.

Advanced holdem players understand that sometimes it isn’t
about winning chips in a hand or situation, it’s about learning
which situations require the conservation of chips so you can
use them to make more money later.

Building a big bankroll is important if you want to be able
to win as much money as possible, but everyone has some sort of
limitation to how much they can wager. Let’s look at a specific
example of how not conserving your bankroll costs you money.

You’re playing in a no limit Texas holdem game with $10 / $20
blinds and are in the small blind four times per hour. In the
eighth hour of the day’s session you get all in against a player
with a $5,000 stack and win. You only have a stack of $1,500 and
you’ve completed the blind bet half the times you’ve been in the
small blind and haven’t won a hand from that position all day.

Most of the hands have been poor or average at best, but you
think it’s only half a bet so why not gamble a little?

So if you’ve played 14 hands for an extra $10 each you have
$140 less than if you’d have folded all of them. So instead of
winning $1,500 on the all in you could have won $1,640.

Expert Texas Holdem Poker

$140 is less than 10% of $1,500, but it’s still a significant
amount of money. And if you only did this once a week you end up
costing yourself $7,280 a year. And if you do this four times a
week instead of once you cost yourself $29,120 a year.

This is enough money to turn some losing players into winning
ones. And this is how many players look at the small blind. They
think it’s only half a bet so why not?

If you play too many hands from the blinds you need
to stop immediately. You need to conserve your chips for more
favorable situations.

This concept needs to be used in every area of your Texas
holdem game, not just in the blinds. Though you need to try to
have enough money to play in any favorable situation, you may
need to pass on a small edge to have enough money to take
advantage of a larger edge later.

If you have a situation where you’re a 52 to 48 favorite and
know that later you’ll have a situation where you’re a 60 to 40
favorite you want to be able to place money on each situation.
But if you have a limited bankroll you may have to skip the
first situation.

This discussion isn’t meant for you to put too much emphasis
on your bankroll. You want to have as big of a bankroll as
possible, but it’s almost as important to understand how to use
your bankroll as a tool and how to protect it so you have the
best chance to profit in the long run and in the maximum
possible amount.

The Best Play Isn’t Always the Best Play

After reading all of the preaching about always putting
yourself in positive expectation positions you’d think finding
contrary advice on the same page would be unlikely. But the
truth is that the answer to so many Texas holdem strategy
questions starts with it depends and this is an area where the
lines are somewhat blurred.

At the lower levels and limits where the competition isn’t
very good the best play is always the best play. What this means
is that you need to always make your playing decisions based on
what the math says is the best play.

But at the top levels of play many of your opponents also
know the best play and use this information to help them figure
out what you have based on the situation and how you play. When
this starts happening you have to occasionally make plays that
aren’t the most profitable from a pure mathematics standpoint so
you can make more money in the long run.

It’s possible we lost some of you with the last paragraph,
but remember this is an advanced strategy page so a few of the
concepts are difficult. Let’s look at it another way.

While it’s the most profitable way to play to raise from
early position with pocket aces every single time you have them
at the lower and middle limits, the way to get the most long
term profit from pocket aces in early position at the top levels
is to raise with them around 95% of the time.

You have to make it as close to impossible as you
can for an opponent to put you on a hand while maintaining your
long term advantage with your best hands. If they know you raise
every time from early position with pocket aces it can cost you
money on some hands, but if they know you raise almost all of
the time, but not every time, it’s valuable to you because they
can’t rule out pocket aces if you limp from early position.

The biggest problem with this is it’s a fine line between
altering your play just enough to throw off your opponents and
doing it so much that you cost yourself more money than you make
up for with the altered play.

Know Your Opponents

On the other side of the last section is you need to be the
opponent who knows how the other players play their hands and
what their playing tendencies make them do.

If you know a player always checks on the river when they
miss their flush or always raises from early position with
pocket kings and aces you know something you can us to make
money when you play against them.

Some players never play anything worse than pocket queens
from early position, so if they enter the pot in early position
you can put them on a very narrow range of hands.

Every little thing you can learn and exploit is worth a
certain amount of profit in the long run. The more of these
small things you can exploit the more money you set yourself up
to make in the long run.

The Small Edge

This is possibly the most important advanced Texas holdem
strategy that you’ll ever learn.

The best Texas holdem players in the world understand that if
they can improve their game a fraction of a percentage it can
mean huge returns in the long run. So they constantly search for
any small edge they can possible find.

How much do you have to make a year playing Texas holdem to
make what you consider a good living from the game? Some players
would be happy making $30,000 a year playing poker, while others
think $100,000 is a good living. Others might think anything
less than a million isn’t enough.

Here’s a simple chart that shows how much a year in increased
profit a player can get for a few different increases in their
winning percentage.

As you can see if a player is making $30,000 a year playing
Texas holdem an increase of 1% is only $300, but even this small
amount is valuable. The same 1% increase for a million dollar a
year player is $10,000.

And the key is that these increases work much like compound
interest. If the million dollars a year player can improve their
game by 1% this year and another the next year and another 1%
the following year they not only increase it on the million
dollars, they also get the increase on the increase from the
previous year or years.

Even if you only find one extra edge and never improve on it
you can earn a great deal more over the course of your poker
playing career.

If you’re making $100,000 a year and increase your return by
2%, if you play another 40 years you’ve made an extra $80,000
over the course of your career.

A million dollar player earns an extra $800,000 over the
course of their career with the same one time 2% improvement.

Even the smallest edges are worth finding. If you can find
four different areas to improve your game a quarter of one
percent you’ve improved your overall returns by 1%.

Plan for Everything

The best Texas holdem players are able to visualize and plan
for almost every possible outcome of every hand they play in.
They already know how they’re going to react to a situation
before it happens.

This gives them an advantage because it gives them extra time
to determine the best play and quickly make adjustments if
something out of the ordinary happens.

When you plan everything you start working as soon as you
start looking for a table to join. You consider the current
players and what you know about them. In order to plan
everything out you need to be able to have an idea of how
certain players play in certain situations.

Of course you plan for every possible way an opponent can
play a hand, but by understanding the most likely way they react
in certain situations it helps you focus more energy on building
a profitable situation more quickly.

Before the hand starts you know you’ll be playing from the
button, which is the best starting position at the table. This
means that you can play more hands from here than at any other
position at the table. You also know that the blinds are both
weak and tend to call from the blinds with a wide range of
hands. This means that the odds of stealing the blinds are low,
but it also means you can count on them putting more money in
the pot if you need to build the pot.

The two players in early position are tight and aggressive
and the two middle position players are not very good.

You receive ace queen suited and instantly start thinking
about how you’ll play it in every conceivable situation. If it
gets around to you in an un-raised pot you’ll probably raise,
and if you have to call a small to medium raise you’ll probably
do so, unless there’s a raise and a re-raise, opening the
possibility of a push behind you. You also know that an ace
queen suited plays well in a multi way pot and can play well
heads up at times, but can also be easily dominated heads up.

As each player acts you receive additional information and
adjust the possible paths the hand can take. When you see the
flop you have additional information and new decisions to make
depending on what can happen.

• What will you do if you face a raise?
• What if it’s checked to you?
• What do you know about the remaining players?

As you work through a hand you need to be prepared for any
possibility. The more you’re able to plan for the more your long
term results will improve.

Summary

Becoming a long term winner at the advanced Texas holdem
tables is more about thinking than acting. Many self-help books
suggest that you need to stop thinking about things so much and
start acting right now. But if you want to learn the best
advanced Texas holdem strategies you need to think.
If you simply study the strategy details you just finished
reading and implement one thing you learned every month for the
next year you’ll be a much better holdem player. And even if
you’re such a good player that you just picked up an extra
percentage you just saw how many thousands of dollars this can
be worth to you over the rest of your life.

You learned two simple strategies that can make a huge
difference in your long term profitability. The second was the
small extra edge and the first was the big hand theory. If you
don’t do anything else from what you learned on this page make
it a goal to find an extra 1% edge somewhere and focus on
winning one or two big hands every day instead of battling over
a bunch of small hands. These two tactics alone will advance
your play quickly.

So what are you waiting for? Take action by getting started
thinking right now.

Texas holdem players who hope to improve their game have
questions. We’ve collected the top 10 questions we’ve seen and
provided in depth answers below. We offer them to you here so
you can learn from them, just like the original players who
asked them did.

We recommend reading them all, even if you think you already
know the answer to one or more questions. You never know when
you learn something new or have an answer spark a new thought in
your mind that leads to a winning breakthrough in your game.

I see other players bluff all the time and win, but
it seems like every time I bluff I get called. How can I get my
bluffs to work better?

One thing that jumps out right away is you say it
seems like you get called every time. Any time you find yourself
saying something seems like it’s happening you should instantly
start tracking your results. Keep a small notebook and start
making a mark each time you bluff and then record if the bluff
was successful or not.

How do you know other players are bluffing? Are they showing
you their bluffs or are you assuming that they’re bluffing?
Never assume an opponent is bluffing unless you see the actual
cards.

Finally, it’s almost certain that you’re bluffing too much.
The reason we can say it’s almost sure is because almost every
player bluffs too often. If you want to be a successful bluffer
you need to pick your spots carefully and not bluff very often.

If you turn over a winning hand most of the time when an
opponent calls you’ll find that many of them will start
respecting your bets more. When they start folding too much to
your bets is when you need to start working in some bluffs. Once
they start calling more you need to tighten up more and stop
bluffing for a while.

It’s also important to know your opponent’s playing
tendencies. Some players simply won’t fold for a single or small
bet. Once you learn this about an opponent you know to never
bluff them, but you also know they’ll pay off your better hands
every time.

On the other hand, some players are so scared that the fold
to any sign of aggression unless they have a strong hand.
Against these players you know you can bluff them with a weak
hand, but you also know you need to let them lead the betting if
possible when you have a strong hand.

One last thing that is especially important in no limit Texas
holdem is that a larger than normal bet in a bluffing situation
often doesn’t work as well as a smaller bet.

A smaller bet looks like you’re trying to get just a little
more form your opponent with a strong hand where an over bet
often looks like a bluff. Of course you still need to know your
opponents because some don’t think deep enough about the game
for this to work.

I’m a cash game player and am getting ready to
enter my first big multi table Texas Holdem tournament. Do you
have any advice that can help me?

The first thing you need to understand is the
difference between your edge on a series of hands in a cash game
and in a tournament. This is best shown using a couple examples.

In a cash game you’re able to get all in on a
series of four hands. You have a statistical edge of 70%, 60%,
65%, and 55% in these four hands. You know from experience that
if you can consistently put yourself in these situations that
you make money. But for a tournament player you don’t have the
luxury of buying back in the three out of 10 times you lose the
first situation like you do in a cash game.

In a tournament if you get all in with the same
four hands and same four chances of winning you’ll be knocked
out of the tournament a high percentage of the time. You’ll be
eliminated from the tournament almost 85% of the time. The way
to quickly determine your chances is convert the percentages to
decimals and multiplying them. .70 X .60 X .65 X .55 = .15015.
Convert this back to a percentage, 15.015%, and subtract from
100. This gives you the percent of time you’ll be knocked out,
which is 84.985%.

This doesn’t mean that you don’t play your hands with high
winning percentages, but you need to try to play them without
getting all in. Sometimes you have to pick up enough small pots
to give you enough chips so you can still have chips left over
when you lose the hands where you’re a favorite.

As you get deeper and deeper into the tournament it becomes
harder to avoid all in confrontations unless you’re among the
chip leaders. All you can do is play your best hands and
understand that sometimes you’re going to bust out. But the good
news is you can find plenty of tournaments to play and if you
consistently play well you’ll break through and win more than
you lose in the long run.

The next thing you need to decide is if you’re going to play
to get into the money or to win. Most players state they play
tournaments to win, but when it gets close to the money bubble
they start folding good hands in order to sneak into the money.

You’re playing in a big tournament and the final 100 players
get paid. The buy in was $100 and the lowest paying place pays
$150. But the real money is at the final table. 110 players
remain in the tournament and you have an average chip stack.
This means you can easily fold every hand until you reach the
money.

Two players at your table have bigger stacks than you and
they are taking turns raising and bullying the table. Most
players are folding to their aggression because they want to
make the money. You face a raise from one of the big stacks and
have pocket kings. If you get all in against them and lose you
miss the money.

How are you going to play the hand? What if you have pocket
queens, or pocket jacks, or ace king?

If you’re truly playing to win you need to try to get all in
with pocket kings. Only one hand I a favorite against you and if
you can double up your average chip stack it puts you in a good
position to have the chips needed to win the tournament.

It’s not for us to tell you how to play and there’s not a
right or wrong answer when it comes down to deciding if you want
to play for the money or to win. But you do need to think about
it before you start playing in tournaments.

If you’re first goal is to get into the money you might even
fold pocket aces in the example above. You also need to think
about where you cut off your starting hands in a situation like
this one if you’re playing strictly to give yourself the best
chance to win. Pocket jacks and ace king are somewhat weak in
most cases if you have to risk your tournament life, but only
you can make this decision based on what you know about your
opponents and the situation.

Right after the final player busts out who isn’t in the money
many of the short stacks start taking risks to either double up
or bust out. At this point you can play your best hands and
quickly increase your stack size many times.

Another thing to remember is that there’s no one right way to
play in order to win tournaments. Many good players play very
tight in the early rounds and look to double up with their very
best hands while others are able to play a loose / aggressive
game early and do well. You have to find the style that fits
with your abilities and work to improve it at all times.

It seems like when I watch Texas Holdem on
television that there’s a great deal of action, but when I play
I get bored because it takes so long between good hands. What’s
the deal with this?

Remember our advice from the first question when you
start saying that something seems to be happening? The problem
with this situation is you don’t get to see all of the hands
when watching Texas holdem tournaments on television. They film
a bunch of footage and then edit it all of the boring hands, so
you only see the action hands.

The ESPN coverage of the World Series of Poker only consists
of a few hours and the tournament lasts several days, with
hundreds of tables running at the same time during the early
rounds.

The next issue is you say you get bored. This is a dangerous
thing for a holdem player. When poker players get bored they
tend to play too many hands. This leads to playing hands that
are weaker than your opponents, reducing your overall chances of
winning.

You should never get bored while playing holdem. If you
aren’t involved in the hand you need to be watching and
collecting information about all of your opponents. Watch what
hands they end up showing down and how they play in every
situation.

Do they only raise with their best hands or do they mix it
up? Do they bluff too much? Are they tight or loose?

Every little bit you can learn about how someone plays is an
extra chance you have to make money from them in a later hand.
Winning Texas holdem players seek and use every little advantage
they can possibly find.

A single big hand can be the difference between a winning and
losing session, so knowing a single thing about and opponent can
be the difference between being a winning and losing player.

I want to be a professional poker player. What
advice can you offer me?

The jump from a recreational or part time poker
player to a full time pro is a huge one. It requires a change in
focus, dedication, time, mental attitude, and lifestyle. No
matter how good your results have been playing part time, if
you’re not completely ready you run a high risk of failure.

Let’s talk about the financial considerations of becoming a
professional Texas holdem player before moving on. You need to
have at least six months worth of living expenses in reserve
before making the jump, and a year’s worth is better. This needs
to be completely separate from your bankroll.

Your bankroll needs to be a minimum of 30 buy in’s if you
play no limit and 300 big blinds if you play limit. Twice this
amount is much better. This may seem like its overly cautious,
but when you’re a pro you have no life line of a job to replace
money when you have a bad streak. And never make the mistake of
thinking you won’t have a bad streak. Every poker player has ups
and downs.

You never should use your living expense fund for poker and
you should never use your bankroll for anything but poker. Set a
regular time to look at your progress and take profit from your
bankroll as it grows. The best system in our opinion is as
follows. We recommend this system because your goal should be to
grow both your living expense account and your bankroll.

At the ends of every month look at the amount of your
bankroll in comparison to the previous month. If you’re down
then do nothing except look for holes in your game and improve
them. If you’re up for the month split the amount you’re up and
put half in your living expenses account and leave half in your
bankroll. Over time you should be making enough to extend your
living expenses beyond a year and keep them there and steadily
increase your bankroll. Your bankroll is your life so you must
protect it in every way possible.

You start the month with $12,000 in your living expenses and
$30,000 in your bankroll. During the month you spend $2,000 out
of your living expenses and your bankroll grows to $36,000. You
put $3,000 in your living expenses and leave $3,000 in your
bankroll. Your new living expenses amount is $13,000 and your
bankroll is now $33,000.

The next month your bankroll is $35,000 at the end of the
month and you spend $2,000 on living expenses. Your new living
expense amount is $12,000 and your new bankroll amount is
$34,000 because you put $1,000 in each account.

The next month you break even playing so your bankroll is
still $34,000 and after spending $2,000 on living expenses your
living expenses account is at $10,000.

In the next month you have a strong showing and end the month
with $42,000 in your bankroll. You spend $2,000 on living
expenses, put $4,000 in your living expenses and leave $4,000 in
your bankroll. Your new living expense amount is $12,000 and
your new bankroll amount is $38,000.

Notice that even though you’ve had three winning months and a
break even month your living expense account hasn’t grown. Your
bankroll has increased by $8,000 so you’re doing well, but the
living expense account is stagnant. At this point you need to
decide if you continue with the current plan or start building
your expense account. It may be prudent to transfer another
$2,000 from your bankroll to your living expenses. But once you
do that the money is gone forever from your bankroll, so make
sure you think it through.

This system is designed so you never have to worry about
money while playing. If you worry about your finances while
playing you’re not going to be focused on what you need to do to
win.

Before making the switch you need to ask yourself a question.
Have you played enough, and tracked all of your play long
enough, to know for a fact that you’re a winning long term
player? Most players make assumptions instead of tracking
everything. Unless you know 100% that you’re a winning player
you need to get better before trying your hand as a pro.

The next area you need to think about is your goals. You need
to have a goal beyond growing your expense account and bankroll.
You need to have specific goals every month and year for how
much you want to win. When you combine your goals with tracking
your results you learn how much you need to play and at what
level.

You play limit Texas holdem and are able to win on average
one big blind per hour. Your goal is to win $6,000 per month and
you’ve been playing 20 / 40. At this rate you need to play 150
hours during the month. This works out to roughly 35 hours per
week.

This also tells you that if you want to make more you either
need to win more per hour or play more hours. Winning more per
hour can be accomplished by increasing your rate of big blind
wins per hour or play a higher limit with the same big blind
wins per hour.

Playing this way becomes a grind, which many players realize
is as bad as or worse than having a regular job. This requires a
mental toughness and dedication that many players simply don’t
have for the long term. Consider this before making the switch
to full time play.

Finally you need the support of your family and everyone else
in your life. This is often overlooked, but if you have
relationships of any kind with a non-poker player they have to
understand how you make money.

One way to still have a relationship and be a professional
player is to schedule a day or two completely off every week.
This is good for both your relationship and your mental health.
Playing poker seven days a week is a form of torture for most
players.

Winning players travel to where the best games are located
and play when these games are available. This means if a game
you can beat is two hours away and starts at midnight and runs
for 18 hours you need to be able to be rested before the game,
be in good enough health to play, and have the understanding and
support from everyone in your life to be able to do it on a
regular basis.

My friends all play No Limit Texas Holdem, but
Limit Holdem seems like a simpler game to win. What’s your
opinion on this?

You should play the game that lets you win the most
per hour. This goes beyond choosing between limit and no limit
play. This also includes being willing to play at the limits the
offer the most return. The most profitable limit may not be the
highest limit your bankroll can afford.

You have a large enough bankroll to play $1,000 buy in no
limit Texas holdem or 50 / 100 limit. You’re an overall winner
at both, but your results are better as a limit player. At 50 /
100 limit you win a half a big bet per hour, but at 30 / 60
you’re able to win a full big bet per hour.

This means at 50 / 100 you win $50 per hour, but at 30 / 60
you win $60 per hour. You clearly should be playing 30 /60. If
you can win two big bets per hour playing 20 / 40 you should be
playing 20 / 40.

No limit Texas holdem offers the chance to win large amounts
when you win, but it also has a bigger variance than limit
holdem. The amount you can win per hour over the long run is
better for some players in no limit, but not for all players.
And even if you can win more per hour playing no limit you may
be more comfortable with the lower variance of playing limit.

Both games are mathematical in nature, but often limit Texas
holdem seems more straightforward. If you’re able to remain
patient, only play your best hands, use position to your
advantage, and understand odds, outs, and pot odds completely,
then you can follow a fairly simple script and grind out profits
playing limit holdem.

But the same can be said for no limit Texas holdem. So the
answer to your question is really which one do you feel more
comfortable playing, or which one shows you the best results?

We hate to give answers that aren’t specific, but in this
case you really need to decide which offers the best options for
you. One solid piece of advice we can offer is it doesn’t matter
what your friends or others think or say. The only things that
matters are your results.

Free Texas Holdem Practice Poker

I want to start hosting a weekly Texas Holdem game.
What do I need to get started?

Tx Poker Texas Holdem Poker

The only things you must have to start are a place to
play, enough playing cards, tables, and chairs to run the game.
Of course having a few other things can be helpful.

In addition to having the things mentioned above, having a
unique set of chips players can use and a software package to
track the blinds and levels are the next two things we
recommend. You can find free and low cost software packages for
Texas holdem tournaments by doing a quick search online.

Chips are available in many places, but you need to be
careful about what you buy. The best chips are ones that are
unique to your game. If you use common chips how are you going
to stop a dishonest player from sneaking chips in from outside
the game? Custom chips are expensive, but you can also buy
stickers to print and place on inexpensive chips.

It’s also nice to have quality playing cards, but the higher
quality cards can be expensive. And you need to examine the
cards after every tournament to see if any have been damages or
marked.

The last thing to consider is whether or not you’re going to
provide dealers for the tournament. Dealers add more expense to
the game but they also help reduce cheating. If the players have
to deal some of them may cheat.

The problem with running a Texas holdem tournament is it can
be expensive, and if you charge an entry fee to cover your
expenses you’re breaking the law in many places. In most
jurisdictions if you’re charging any type of fee for entry to
the game you’re running an illegal gambling operation.

We’ve seen some creative ways that organizers have tried to
get around this, but we’d hate to have to fight in court using
them. Here are a couple that we’ve seen used.

One of our editors played in a weekly tournament where the
buy in was $100 and you paid a $20 fee. The organizers prepared
a nice meal for every player and claimed the $20 was for the
meal, not the game. But the problem was you couldn’t just play
for $100, you had to pay for the food.

Another ploy is to call the place a club or organization and
the extra money on top of the buy in is a membership fee. In our
non-legal opinion, the courts are probably not going to look
kindly on these types of things if you get caught.

We realize that poker tournaments are being run all over the
place and most of them are never bothered by the cops, but that
doesn’t mean you can’t be arrested and charged. This is
especially true if a player feels they’ve been cheated and
complain to the authorities.

We’re not offering legal advice, but make sure you consider
all of the possible ramifications before you start hosting a
game.

I have a hard time figuring my odds, percentages,
and pot odds during a game. Are there any shortcuts you can
recommend to make it easier?

The easiest way to make a close guess to your chances
of winning hand after the flop is to use the following trick.
Learn how to count your outs first. This is easy and most
players can learn this quickly.

If you have four to a flush you know the deck has nine other
cards of your suit. So you have nine outs.

Once you know how many outs you have if you still have the
turn and river you multiply your outs by four. If you just have
the river to come you multiply you routs by two. This gives you
roughly the percentage chance you have of winning the hand.

In the example above of a flush draw and nine outs, the
estimated chances with both the turn and river to come are 36%
and with just the river to come is 18%. The true odds are 35%
and 19.6% so you can see that this quick trick gives you a
strong estimate of your chances.

The next trick is to learn the most common situation and
memorize them. The flush draw in the example above is a common
one, as well as an open ended straight draw, two pair or three
of a kind improving to a full house, and having two over cards
with hopes of pairing one of them.

You also need to have an idea of how your percentage chances
of winning or hitting your hand relate to the pot odds. Pot odds
are simply the comparison of the amount of money in the pot and
the amount you have to call in order to stay in the hand. When
you compare your chances of winning with the pot odds you can
determine if it’s profitable or not to stay in the hand.

If the pot has $100 in it and you have to call $20 and you
have the flush draw mentioned above after the flop, the pot odds
are favorable to call. You’re going to hit your flush a little
over one out of every three times based on the 36% chance. We
now know that your actual chance is 35%, but the estimate is
close enough.

This means that every three times you win once and lose
twice. So if the pot has more than two times the amount you have
to put in then the pot odds are in your favor.

If you’re in the same situation but on the river instead of
before the turn you have a 18% chance, really 19.6%, so this is
roughly one out of every five times.

This means that you’ll win once and lose four times out of
every five. In other words your pot chances are four to one. The
pot is offering five to one odds, with $100 in it and you have
to call $20, so the pot is offering a better return than your
odds of making the hand. This means you need to call.

Pot odds can be intimidating, but if you start with the
simple steps we just covered you’ll quickly learn to determine
your chances of winning and if you should play or fold in most
situations.

I play No Limit Texas Holdem recreationally and do
pretty good overall. I track my play and win a little more than
I lose and am considering playing more. But I have a good job
and don’t plan to ever play full time or professionally. Should
I try to invest more time and effort into poker or just be happy
with my current results?

First of all, let us say congratulations on being a
winning Texas holdem player. It’s not as easy as many make it
seem, so you’re ahead of the majority of players.

Concerning the rest of your question, this is getting
dangerously close to letting someone else tell you what to do
with your life. We can offer advice on what you can do to
improve your game, but it sounds like you’re somewhat happy with
your current situation.

In order to get better at Texas holdem you’re going to need
to dedicate more time and effort to the game and that time has
to be taken away from something else. Only you can decide if
you’re going to be happier making these changes or if improving
your poker results will make you happier.

Being a good recreational player and having a good job you
enjoy is a good thing. But having a full time job and being a
really good poker player are rarely found together.

If you want to try to improve your results start by taking an
extra 30 minutes a day and dedicate it to improving your holdem
skills. This can be spent reading about how to be a better
player, studying other players, or researching articles online
designed to improve the weak spots in your game.

Do this for a month and then try to judge your results and if
you’re happier than before. Let us warn you about trying to
judge your happiness though. This evaluation can be somewhat
subjective and change based on other things in your life.

You should also realize that many people who are good holdem
players have quit their jobs to play full time and found they
hated the grind. Even some winning players have went back to
doing something else for a living and playing as a hobby. Being
a full time poker player isn’t easy and it isn’t always fun.

I play in a weekly No Limit Texas Holdem tournament
and many players move all in every time they have Ace King. I
try to never get all in with Ace King, but I’m not very
experienced and am beginning to think I might be playing wrong.
Can you help me?

Don’t worry, just because everyone else seems to be
doing something it doesn’t mean you’re wrong. In this case
you’re the one who’s playing correctly, not your opponents.

In most situations the best you can hope for with ace king is
a roughly 50 / 50 chance of winning. When you hold ace kin
against a player with a pair lower than kings it’s basically a
toss-up. But if you hold ace kin against a pair of aces or kings
you’re dominated.

You don’t win Texas holdem tournaments by getting all in with
50 / 50 hands. If you play only four 50 / 50 hands during a
tournament all in you only have a 6.25% chance of still being
alive.

Focus on hands that give you a much higher percentage chance
of winning and winning smaller pots to build your chip stack so
you don’t have to get all in often.

You also need to understand that most Texas holdem players
lose over the long term. This means that just because everyone
seems to be doing it, it doesn’t mean it’s going to win in the
long run. Learn how to determine if a situation is profitable of
not so you don’t have to rely on what others are doing.

I’m a Texas Holdem player and often get frustrated
when players make bad plays but end up winning. I know in the
long run I make money when I play hands as a favorite, but I’m
considering switching to Omaha 8. Is this a good idea?

While it’s true that Omaha 8 is a more predictable
and straightforward mathematical game, you’re still going to
face the same irritations because players are still going to
make bad plays and sometimes they’ll still win.

The key in Texas holdem, or Omaha, or any other game of poker
is to put yourself in a positive expectation position as often
as possible and then let the long term percentages play in your
favor. If you do this you’ll suffer some ups and downs, but in
the long run you’re going to win more than you lose.

The reason Omaha 8 is more predictable than Texas holdem is
because of the amount of information you have during each hand.
In Texas holdem you know the identity of two cards before the
flop, your hole cards, and five cards after the flop, your two
hole cards and the three on the flop.

In Omaha you know the identity of four cards before the flop
and seven cards after the flop. The added cards reduce the
possibilities for the rest of the hand and after the flop you
have five of the seven cards you’re going to be able to use to
make your hand.

All of this means that for players who have a deep
understanding f the mathematics behind poker Omaha is somewhat
easier. But the same player can use the same math to be a
winning Texas holdem player also.

The only reason you should consider switching from Texas
holdem to Omaha 8 is if you can make more money in the long run
playing Omaha than holdem. You need to learn to deal with the
frustration of playing against bad players, because the only way
you make money at the poker table is by playing against players
who are worse than you.

You say you know that you make money by playing hands as a
favorite, but this doesn’t seem to be satisfactory to you. We
suggest stepping back and trying to look at poker as a way to
make short term investments instead of as a game. Short term
investments can increase or decrease, but if you make the smart
investment more often than not they make a positive return over
time.

Being the best Texas holdem player you can be requires
dedication and constant study. One of the best ways to learn new
things is by reading the questions and answers of other players.

Take a few moments to write down the things you learned from
the questions and answers above. By writing them down while
they’re fresh in your mind you won’t forget anything important
and it helps ingrain the lessons in your mind.