While it’s best to memorize this chart, until you do just print it out and have it near you when you’re playing. You can see that as the higher card goes down in rank, the spread between it and the lower card gets tighter. That’s mainly because the only hope you have with a starting hand like 7-6o is to make a Straight and more Straights can be made when there are fewer “gaps” to deal with. For those of you who are Video Poker players, you know exactly what I mean; in fact, I found my experience at playing VP very helpful in recognizing playable situations.
Now look at the minimum hands for the mighty Ace. If the lower card is of any rank and is suited, the hand is playable, but if it’s unsuited, it should be no lower than a 10. As you’ll find out, most players will cling to A-xo until the bitter end. And you’ll most certainly lose some nice hands to something like A-6o, but in the long run, it shouldn’t be played. To draw an analogy to Blackjack one more time, folding A-6o is like hitting A-7 versus a dealer’s 9; not everyone does it, even though it’s the proper play. It may not “feel” right, but you’ll make more $$$ in the long run if you’ll do it. Math does not have room for “feelings”. Cold, perhaps but that’s how it is.
Pairs: No pairs are listed on here because all of them are playable at one time or another. Just remember that this list (and the pairs) is not a license to play these hands at any time, under any set of circumstances. For example, you’d be crazy to play 10-7s in an early position after 3 players have raised behind you. As I said earlier, this list is as much about what not to play as it is about what’s playable. So stop calling with those Q-3s hands and be patient until I show you the entire matrix. That will incorporate this list and the pairs into a complete strategy that takes into consideration your position, how many bets you have to call and so on. In the meantime, I have some homework for you and that’ll wrap it up.
“The end depends upon the beginning.” I heard that line in a movie recently and it certainly applies to Hold ‘em poker, although that’s not what the movie was about. At best, it’s extremely difficult to make a comeback if you enter the pot of a Hold ‘em game with a bad hand. I see it all the time and it happens, I guess, because so many people feel about poker like they do about Blackjack; “it’s all luck, anyway, so what’s the difference?” Well, if you’ve studied my Blackjack lessons the least little bit, you know it’s not “all luck” by a long shot. Sure, there is a luck factor that we cannot deny (I prefer to call it “variance”) but making the mathematically proper play for each and every hand goes a long way toward reducing the luck factor in Blackjack and that’s what we call playing Basic Strategy. Unfortunately, playing Basic Strategy alone will not give you an edge over the casino – which is why my Blackjack lessons also teach you how to count the cards – but the proper Basic Strategy for a given set of rules in a Blackjack game will reduce the casino’s edge over you to a minimum; generally 0.5% or even less.
Hold ‘em poker also has a “basic strategy” and it begins with the first two cards you’re dealt in the game, your “pocket” or “hole” cards. (I suppose that “pocket” cards is more the poker expression, so I’ll try to use that when I’m talking about a player’s two face-down cards in a Hold ‘em game, but forgive me now and then when I lapse into calling them “hole” cards). Anyway, it’s easy to imagine that if you were always dealt a pair of “pocket” Aces, you would win tons of $$$ at Hold ‘em. Of course, it wouldn’t be long before no one would play against you, but you get the idea. Great cards in the pocket are the start of a great hand. In poker, as in Blackjack, great hands win most of the time. Not all of the time, mind you, just most of the time. We don’t always win with a hand of 20 versus a dealer’s 6 in Blackjack, nor will we always win with AA (“pocket rockets” in poker slang) in Hold ‘em, but it’s still a good way to start.
So, how do you make sure you have a good start for a Hold ‘em poker hand? Well, that’s the beauty of the game of poker. If you don’t like your first two cards, you throw them away! It’s somewhat like the surrender rule in Blackjack, except it doesn’t cost as much. If you’re familiar with surrender, you can stop the play by giving up half your bet and, if surrender is allowed in the casino where you’re playing, you should do it whenever the mathematics say you’ll win less than 50% of the time. But 50% is a fairly steep price to pay for getting out of the hand. However in poker, it’s not nearly that much. In most poker games with 8 to 10 players, you’ll have to post a “small blind” and “big blind” bet only about once every 8-10 hands. All of the other hands you’ll get cost you nothing to throw away, so in, say, a $10/$20 game with a $5 small blind bet and a $10 big blind bet, it’ll cost you only $15 for each “round” of 8-10 hands to toss them. That’s a little more that $1.50 per hand and, with a $10 minimum bet per round, the percentage is only 15-20% if you always fold. It would be stupid to always fold, of course, but I want to contrast this with surrender in Blackjack where it would cost you 50% of your total bets if you always did it.
The point I’m trying to make here is that you do not have to play poor cards in a Hold ‘em poker game, but most beginners do. The wise player enters the pot on his or her own terms or s/he simply doesn’t play. This takes a certain amount of patience that many beginners seem to lack (“Hell, I’m here to play Hold ‘em poker, not Fold ‘em poker”) and you can take advantage of that. Just as it takes patience for the count in a 6-deck Blackjack game to get into positive territory, so it is with Hold ‘em. Good pocket cards don’t come along on every deal, so you’ve got to fold a lot if you expect to make any $$$ from this game. There’s no arguing that the game of Hold ‘em poker is much more complicated than the game of Blackjack, but both use decks of 52 cards and both are subject to mathematical analysis, so it’s actually possible for us to determine which sets of pocket cards are worth playing and which are not.
There are actually EV tables that show the long term statistical results of Hold’em hands. Another site has a copy of this chart, where it ranks poker hands by EV. This gives a numerical value to each hand combination, that easily shows the good vs bad poker hands.
Let me give you a crystal clear example: Which pocket pair do you think will win more, KK or 22? Hopefully the answer is obvious. A pair of deuces can be beat by any other pair out there but a pair of Kings can only be beaten by a pair of Aces. Of course, both are beat by two-pair, a set of Trips, etc. so a pair of anything isn’t necessarily an automatic winner when all five community cards have been dealt. But it’s actually fairly easy to determine which pocket cards will win in the long run and which won’t. It’s not exactly like determining how much we’ll make with a 20 versus a dealer’s 6 in Blackjack, because your position at the poker table, the cards that come on the flop, the turn and the river (Unfamiliar with these terms? See lesson 1.), the other players’ cards, how much is in the pot and a variety of other factors will ultimately determine the value of a starting hand.
But, believe it or not, we can assign some average values to all of those variables and come up with a nice list of playable pocket cards, which I’ll present below.
But before I do that, let me explain my “grand scheme” here. What I intend to ultimately present to you is a Hold ‘em Poker Basic Strategy Matrix, which is very much like the matrix I use in teaching Basic Strategy for Blackjack. But the Hold ‘em matrix is going to be a bit more complicated because it will take into consideration your position at the table, the number of players that called the bet before you, any raises, etc. Complicated? Yes. But remember that I’m teaching you how to play Hold ‘em poker at online poker rooms, so you won’t have to memorize anything! Just print out what I show you and keep it by your computer as you play. Of course, if you are willing to do some memorizing, then the process of evaluating a hand will proceed more quickly, plus you might want to use this information in a brick-and-mortar casino where using a “cheat sheet” may not be appropriate.
Like any other matrix, mine will be built in layers that hopefully have some sort of rhyme and reason about them. But I definitely know where to start and that is to give you a list of the minimum hands you should play. What I mean by that is this: Your pocket cards can only be one of three types: pairs, suited cards or unsuited cards. Obviously pairs cannot be suited; there is only one King of spades in a deck; get two King of spades as pocket cards and there’s a definite problem. Back in the Old West, you’d probably get shot for that. But to continue along, besides pairs (cards of equal “rank” but different suit), you can get suited cards (different rank but same “suit”) or unsuited cards (different suit, different rank) and that’s it. Within all of those various permutations of cards, there are 1326 different two-card combinations that can make up the pocket cards in a Hold ‘em game. Play long enough and you’ll get all of them, but there are only about 250 or so that you should bet on. Except for the pairs, each set has one card that is higher in rank than the other and that’s what forms the basis for my minimum starting hand list. For example, you might be dealt 10c7d (10 of clubs, 7 of diamonds) so the first thing you do is look at the card of the highest rank, which is the 10 of clubs. If the lower card of the two is equal to or higher than the minimum I list, the hand may be played. I say “may” because as we go along, you’ll see that your position at the table, the number of raises you may have to call, etc., will all have an effect on whether or not you play the hand. But if the lower card of the two is outside the “minimum”, you’ll just fold the hand, regardless. So, I guess this isn’t so much a list of hands to play as much as a list of hands to not play.
Let me amplify my example with the 10c7d hand. The absolute minimum hand you should play where the 10 is the high card is 10-7s. This means “10, 7 suited”; in other words, the two are of the same suit, like spades, hearts, diamonds or clubs. Remember that this is the minimum hand, so it’s okay to play 10-8s or 10-9s, because they are “above” a 10-7s. What about a 10-Jack, you ask? Well, that falls under the Jacks hands, because we always work off the higher card, so don’t get confused. Okay, what about 10 and something unsuited? The minimum hand there is 10-8o (10, 8 offsuit). I’m using a small “o” to represent unsuited (“off-suit”) only because that’s the way it’s done by most poker writers. I think it should be “u”, but they got here before me, so I’ll do it their way. Okay, so now we know that the minimum hand with a high card of 10 where the cards are not suited is 10, 8. This means it’s okay to play 10-9o, but not 10-7o. The cards would have to be suited for that. Obviously, 10-5, either suited or unsuited is outside the range, so it should never be played, period.
As you go through the list, keep in mind the rationale for most of these choices. Pairs can be improved in many ways and high pairs (Aces-Jacks) can often win on their own. Two suited cards of different rank can win by turning into a Flush, a Straight or a Straight Flush, or by improving to Two-Pair, Trips, etc. Two pocket cards of different rank and suit are not likely to turn into a Flush, and while they might make Two-pair, Trips, etc., they’ll most likely either make a single Pair or, if all goes well, a Straight. Generally you’ll see that the “bottom” card is at or near the low end of a Straight Flush for the higher card. For example, the minimum hand for a Queen is Q-8s (Queen, 8 suited) because the 8 is the lowest card that will make a Straight or Straight Flush with a Queen. If the Queen and the other card are not suited, the minimum hand is Q-9o. This makes sense, because you’re giving up some “flush power” with this hand; it’ll take four cards of whatever suit the Queen is in to make a Flush and somebody else may have the King or Ace and beat you. Just so we’re clear on this, if the higher card is a Queen and the lower card is of the same suit, Queen-8 is the minimum hand which means it’s okay to play the hand with a suited 9 or 10, also. But if you have, say, a suited 7 (or lower) with the Queen, the hand should be folded. If they’re offsuit, then a 9 is as low as you should go; not even an 8 should be played, let alone a 7 or lower.
Make sense? I hope so, but if not, don’t hesitate to e-mail me your questions. I always answer my mail personally and I try to do it within 2-3 days at the most. You’ll find my address at the end of the lesson.
Okay, so here’s my list of minimum starting hands. Remember that s = suited and o = offsuit or unsuited. Oh, yeah “x” means any card. By the way, this list is for Limit Hold ‘em; No-limit starting hands would be quite a bit different.
Okay, as promised, here’s a chart of probabilities for various hands you might hold at the flop, which means the first three community cards have been dealt. This chart assumes you’ll get to see two more cards – the turn and the river – and further assumes you won’t have to make any futher bets. That’s not likely to happen, of course, but remember that you might make your hand on the turn in which case the numbers become unimportant, because you’ll likely call (if not raise) any bet from that point forward.
Hand at the Flop
Becomes
At this rate of probability
Bet Multiplier
Two-pair
Full House
6.5%
-card Flush
Flush
5.0%
-card open-ended Straight
Straight
1.5%
.3
-card inside Straight
Straight
6.5%
Any Pair
Three-of-a-kind
.5%
2
Any Three-of-a-kind
Four-of-a-kind
.4%
2
If you miss making your hand on the turn, here’s a chart to help you decide if you should call a bet before the river card is dealt:
Hand at the Turn
Becomes
At this rate of probability
Bet Multiplier
Two-pair
Full House
.7%
2
-card Flush
Flush
9.5%
-card open-ended Straight
Straight
7.4%
-card inside Straight
Straight
.7%
2
Any Pair
Three-of-a-kind
.3%
2
Any Three-of-a-kind
Four-of-a-kind
.1%
8
The numbers to use to multiply your proposed bet in order to compare it with the pot to see if you’ll be betting with a positive expectation are a little on the conservative side, so adjust them if you can live with more risk, especially where you already have a “made” hand, such as Trips, etc. As I explained above, sometimes the hand you’re hoping to improve will be good enough to win the pot, so over-betting a little probably won’t hurt you in the long run, but remember that 4-card Straights and Flushes are basically worthless if they don’t convert, so I’d advise against “pushing the envelope” when it comes to betting those hands.
As I said in Lesson 1, Internet poker rooms are different than their brick-and-mortar counterparts and the instant tabulation of the pot’s value is one of those distinctions. Rather than spending your time trying to figure what’s in the pot, you can spend it by seeing if your bet will have a positive EV and, in the long run, that’ll be worth a lot of $$$ to you.
I know that a lot of you are less than thrilled by mathematical dissertations, but it’s all a part of the game and you must have a grasp on at least a few basic principles in order to be successful at Hold ‘em Poker, so please bear with me. I’ll try to make this as simple, easy to understand and brief as possible. If you’re a student of my Blackjack School, you’re hopefully already familiar with the term, “expected value” (EV), but it’s not something you hear about a lot in the poker world. For whatever reason, most poker players, authors, commentators and so forth seem to prefer using “odds” to describe a situation. For example, a particular play may have odds of “4 to 1 against”, which basically means it has a 20% probability of happening.
The terminology of odds have always confused me and because of that, I wanted to teach myself, and you, a quick way of doing calculations in your head, so I’ve decided to go more with probability when calculating EV, rather than odds. I mean, does 5 to 1 odds mean a 16.67% probability or a 20% probability? While there’s not a huge difference between the two, being consistently wrong about how you figure your chances in a given situation will eventually cost you some hard-earned $$$. But for those of you who’d rather deal with odds, let me show you the easiest way to convert probability to odds. Any probability that’s expressed as a percentage can be converted to odds by first subtracting the probability from 100, then dividing the result by the probability. For example, in the case of a 16.66% probability it’ll look like this: 100 minus 16.66 = 83.34 divided by 16.66 = 5.00 or 5 to 1 “against”. In the case of a 20% probabilty, it’ll look like this: 100 minus 20 = 80 divided by 20 = 4.00 or 4 to 1 odds “against”.
What do 5 to 1 odds “against” mean in the real world? Well, it means that for every 6 times you try the whatever you’re talking about, it’ll work once. More confusion, right? The clue for getting a good grasp on this is to add the 5 to the 1 to get 6. Out of 6 attempts, 1 will work, so the odds are 5 to 1 “against.” Isn’t it really just more simple to say you have a 16.66% chance of success? That’s what I’m going to do as I take you through this course, use probability in conjunction with bet size to arrive at EV (expected value, remember?). For example, if your $10 bet has a probability of success of 20%, your EV is $10 x 20% (or 0.20) = $2.00. It’s what we do in Blackjack all the time; a hand of 6,4 versus the dealer’s 7 has an EV of -.476 if you stand (!!!), an EV of +.293 if you hit and an EV of +.406 if you double. It’s just a matter of choosing the highest EV in the play of your hand, so you should double 6,4 vs. 7.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t work exactly that way in Hold ‘em Poker, because your hand is always being compared to the other players’ hands and, as the old saying goes, “Any hand can be a winner in poker”. Rather than measuring the value of a given hand, I’m going to show you how to evaluate the expected value of your bets with the idea that if you make all (or almost all) of your bets in situations where you have a “positive” EV, you can’t help but make a profit. This doesn’t mean you’re going to win every hand, just like there’s no guarantee you’re going to win every time you double 10 vs. a dealer’s 7 in Blackjack. But, if you do it often enough, in the long run you’ll make a profit.
Let me give you a quick example of what I mean. Let’s say that you hold a hand of 10, J offsuit in the “pocket” in a $10/$20 limit game and the flop comes 10, J, 6 (I’m ignoring suits here). You now have Two-pair and, if you choose to play this hand through to its conclusion – two more cards – there is a 16.5% chance that you’ll catch another 10 or Jack, thus ending up with a Full House. Now remember that the math can’t tell you if the Full House you make is a guaranteed winner because another player may have a higher Full House or Four-of-a-kind, etc. when all the cards have been dealt. But, the math can tell you if betting on your Two-pair makes sense. Let’s say all of the pre-flop betting has resulted in a pot total of $60, the bet after the flop comes to you and the pot is now worth a total of $90. Should you make a bet on this hand?
First of all, you have Two-pair, regardless of what happens and that alone may be enough to eventually win, so it has a value of its own, but let’s ignore that for the moment. However, let’s assume that a Full House has nearly a 100% probability of winning the pot, as most Full Houses do. With a 16.5% probability of making a Full House from your hand, the EV of your bet is 16.5% of $90 = $14.85. If the bet you have to make is $10, then you have a definite positive EV and should make the bet. If the bet you must make is $40, it’s not as clear-cut a choice. That’s because players betting after you may or may not add more to the pot’s value, plus you’ll undoubtedly have to make additional bets after the “turn” and “river” cards are dealt. But all we can really do is play our hand one bet at a time, while taking into consideration what other hands are being formed by the other players; don’t forget that the flop, turn and river cards belong to them, too. As we get further into the lessons, I’ll show you how to “read” other players’ hands by how they bet or don’t bet and that will help you in your decision-making process for situations like this where a hand with a positive EV can be suddenly transformed to one with a negative expectation.
Whether or not you make a $40 bet for the hand shown above is immaterial to this situation. What really matters is that you know the probability of making the hand from the flop, forward and you use that to guide your betting. But, and it’s a big “but”, if you choose to make the $40 bet, be aware that it’s probably a negative EV bet at the moment and, if you make them often enough, you’ll eventually lose all of your $$$. I say “probably” because at this point I cannot precisely quantify the value of your Two-pair other than to say that the only hand it beats is a Pair, but that’s often enough to win a pot in Hold ‘em. If we somewhat arbitrarily assign a probability of 20% to the Two-pair winning the pot, then the total EV for that hand is about $33 (20% x $90 = $18 + $14.85), so a $40 bet is a borderline decision at best and a $30 bet seems reasonable. However, a $60 bet would be a real “gamble” and you should know that before you make the call.
Some poker experts like to use “implied odds” when making a decision like this and they want you to figure out how many players will call your bet so the total pot before the next bet comes due can be used to calculate your EV, which they call “pot odds”. Well, that sounds good and is certainly valid if you’re able to predict just who is going to bet and how much they’ll bet. My problems with that concept are many, not the least of which is that it encourages a certain amount of wishful thinking on your part, plus it’s yet another layer of calculation that’s being added to what is already a fairly complex equation. Just as in Blackjack, I prefer to err on the side of conservatism when $$$ are involved, so rather than use implied odds, I prefer to use the odds presented to me as the hand progresses. Let’s continue along and play out the Two-pair we have by making a $30 call after the flop. Now comes the “turn” card and it may well give us our Full House. But, if your luck is like mine, it won’t so we’ll have to face more decisions in betting. (If we made the Full House with the turn card, I’m assuming we’ll welcome and call any bet or more likely, raise the pot for the balance of play.) With the turn card out, we now have to re-evaluate if our hoped-for Full House can still win the pot. Don’t forget that Four-of-a-kind beats a Full House, as does a Straight Flush, so we have to evaluate the impact of the turn card on other players’ hands. It didn’t help us, but it might have helped them.
If you remember, we had a hand of 10, J and the flop came 10, J, 6. Because I’m ignoring suits in this example, let’s rule out the possibility of a Straight Flush, but even if the flopped 10, J were suited, the best anyone could have is a 4-card Straight Flush (called a S.F. “draw”) and the odds are greatly in favor of them making either a Straight or Flush, both of which lose to a Full House, so we can’t spend our time worrying about losing to a Straight Flush. I’ve played thousands of hands and have lost to a Straight Flush only one time. But that little, lonely 6 that came on the flop could be a problem. It’s not inconceivable that some other player has 6,6 “in the hole” and s/he is going to be thrilled to see it, because those Trip 6s will beat our Two-pair if we don’t improve.
But we have set our course and will go forward, although not blindly. By calculating our EV after the flop, we are not done with all of the calculations for this hand, as we would be in a no-limit game where we went “all in”. If a player who has just been passively checking or calling now comes out with a bet or raise after the turn card is dealt, we must take that into consideration when the bet comes to us. In a Limit game where we cannot go “all-in”, which guarantees us to see the last two cards without further betting, we have to – once more – calculate our pot odds to see if it’s a positive EV. Let’s say the the turn is the 5 of spades, a card that probably helped no one, but a player acting before us now bets $20 and the pot is offering us $110 for a $20 call. We still have two-pair, which might be good enough to win the hand, but now – with only one card to come – the probability of making a Full House has dropped to 4 chances of 46 or 8.7%. (See that? We can make our FH by catching one of the two remaining Jacks or one of the two remaining 10s, thus 4 “outs” among the 46 cards we haven’t seen). For a pot at $110, our EV is 8.7% x $110 = $9.57, but we must call with a $20 bet.
But, you may ask, what about the bets we already have in the pot; don’t they have a place in our calculations? The short answer is “no”. Those $$$ are gone, so to speak and we’ll only get them back if we win the hand. Think about it: If we don’t call, they’re lost anyway, so I don’t count our previous bets when calculating EV, only the full value of the pot, thus an EV of $9.57 with only 4 “outs”. You’ll hear that a lot in the poker world; the number of “outs”, so let me take a minute to explain it.
Up to this point in our play, we’ve seen 6 cards; our two “hole” or “pocket” cards and the four community cards on the “board”, three from the flop and the one turn card. That leaves 46 cards unseen and we can only assume, at least for mathematical purposes, that the two Jacks and two 10s that will help us remain in the deck. That, indeed, may not be the case, but we have no way of knowing otherwise unless someone shows us their hand. So it’s just like in Blackjack; if we don’t see it, we don’t count it. Of course, we’re not counting the cards here, so the math is now very simple. Four cards of 46 help us so we have 4 “outs”, or a 2/23 probability of making our hand at this point. Does this mean that the pot now has to be 11.5 times the size of our bet in order for us to call a bet? Not really, because we could have the best hand with two-pair; after all, someone may be bluffing or has a lower two-pair such as 10s and 6s, etc. If this were a no-limit game where we could go “all-in” after the flop, then 6 to 1 pot odds would be satisfactory because no more bets can be made, plus we’re guaranteed to see both the turn and river cards. But in a limit game, we should calculate the pot odds after every card is dealt.
I’m going to give you the percentages of success for making various hands that you may encounter after the flop (5 cards seen), then those same numbers based upon staying with the hand until the end (7 cards seen), but first I want to show you an easy way to check the validity of your bet in the heat of battle, so to speak. If you have a probability of 16.5% in making your Two-pair into a Full House, that means the pot should be at least six times the value of your bet for it to carry a positive EV. Why six? Multiply 16.5% by 6 and you get 99%. A figure of 100% is the threshold of positive expectation, but for me, 99% is close enough because we have some extra EV built into the play due to the possibility of the two-pair winning on their own. Knowing this little trick will allow you to quickly calculate the pot odds in the manner I’ve described above by multiplying the bet times 6 and then comparing that figure to the pot total at the time it’s your turn to bet. That’s very easy to do in a limit Hold ‘em game because of the uniform bet size and not so easy in a pot limit or no-limit game. But for now, we’re discussing limit Hold ‘em, so I won’t confuse the issue.
Let me give you an example of how this works. Let’s say the pot is $90 and you must bet $10, minimum. Well, six times $10 is $60 and the pot is “paying” you $90, so make the bet. Were the pot only $40, you’d be facing a negative expectation of $20 if you make the bet. Conversely, if the pot is, say, $300, you could bet $40 and still have a positive EV. If nothing else, this method of play removes a lot of anxiety from the game; should I call, bet, fold or raise… oh, what to do?
Speaking of moving on, let me give you a quick explanation of how to play Hold ‘em poker. While each poker room may have some slight variations (and you should thoroughly read the rules at whichever poker room you visit), generally it goes like this:
Any number from 2 to 10 players may be at the table.
Although the casino deals the cards, the “dealer” for each round of play is designated by a button, marked “dealer” and that person will act last.
Before any cards are dealt, the player to the immediate left of the dealer must post a bet called the “small blind”, which is typically one-half of the minimum bet for the game ($5 in a 10/20 game, for example).
The player to the immediate left of the “small blind” also must post a bet. It is typically equal to the minimum bet for the game ($10 in a 10/20 game, for example). This is called the “big blind.”
The two players making the blind bets, all of the other players and the dealer are then dealt two cards face down, which are called “hole” or “pocket” cards.
The player to the immediate left of the big blind begins the general betting by either folding (at no cost), calling (matching the $10 “big blind” bet), or raising the big blind’s bet ($10 in a 10/20 game, for example). If this player folds, all of the others must all either fold, raise or call. There are no “free rides” to the next card.
The betting action continues around the table, clockwise, until it reaches the player who made the small blind bet. That player may, at his option, fold (thus forfeiting the bet), call or raise (assuming the raising limit hasn’t been reached; usually 3 or 4 raises are the limit). If the decision is to call, this player receives credit for the small blind bet that he or she placed, so in a 10/20 game where no other player has raised, the small blind may call for $5 or raise for $15.
It’s now time for the player that made the big blind bet to act and his or her situation is just like that of the small blind; only the bet sizes are different. If no one has raised, then the big blind can just “check” to be in the pot. However, the big blind may choose to fold because there was a raise, thus forfeiting the bet, or raise, (assuming the raising limit hasn’t been reached) by betting an additional increment ($10 in a 10/20 game, for example). All of the bets are then pulled to the center of the table by the casino’s dealer and, in the case of Internet poker, a “pot” total is displayed.
When this “pre-flop” betting is completed, three community cards are dealt and turned face up in the center of the table. These cards, called the “flop” are community cards, in the sense that all the players still in the game may use them in combination with their two pocket cards to make the best hand possible. The general betting at this point is begun by the player that made the small blind bet and he or she may check, fold (foolish, because checking costs nothing at this point) or bet. If this player bets, it’s for the minimum amount of the game ($10, for example in a 10/20 limit game). The play now proceeds clockwise around the table to the player who made the big blind bet and he or she must either check (only if the small blind checked), call, raise or fold and that’s true of every other player. The two players “in the blind” must call any raises to stay in the pot or they must fold.
Once the flop bets are all made, they’re pulled to the center of the table and another community card is dealt. This card is known as the “turn” or fourth street card. It’s placed face up in the center of the table, next to the flop and is available for the use of all the players remaining. Then, another round of betting begins with the first remaining player on the dealer’s left, which may or may not be the player who made the small blind bet. On this round if that player wishes to bet, it must be for the maximum bet in a limit game ($20 in a 10/20 game, for example), although he may check, if desired. If the player does not check, the other remaining players must either call, raise or fold to stay in the pot. Again, the betting goes in order around the table, all of the bets are pulled to the center and a fifth card, known as the river or fifth street card is placed face up in the center of the table, next to the others.
When the river card, which is the last to be dealt for a round has been placed, the fourth and final round of betting begins with the first player to the left of the dealer. This player may check or bet, as desired. If he decides to bet, it must be for the maximum bet ($20 in a 10/20 limit game). Should this player check, then all others may check until someone bets. If a player does bet, then all the players that checked must either call, raise or fold. I emphasize this because a lot of “newbies” to the game will fold when the bet has been checked to them and that’s a big mistake, because checking is free. No matter how bad your hand may be, you can always fold it if someone acting after you bets or raises, but you just might check yourself into a winner.
After the betting has been completed, it’s time for the “showdown” and this is where the Internet casinos have a huge advantage over the brick-and-mortar casinos. Because you may use any 5 of the 7 cards you’ve seen (your 2 pocket cards and the 5 community cards) to make your final hand, it sometimes is confusing as to what the best hand is. At a brick-and-mortar casino, you may display your hole cards to the dealer and he or she will figure out where you stand, but that also gives your opponents a lot of valuable information that they can use against you: do you draw to inside Straights, did you raise with a weak hand and so forth. Plus, you might look downright stupid showing a four-card flush that you thought was a winner, but that won’t happen at an Internet poker room because the computer already knows where you stand. If you’ve lost, most of the software programs will tell you so and you can “muck” the hand without showing your hole cards, plus – and I guarantee this will happen one fine day – if you have a winner that you thought was a loser, the computer will tell you that, too. There’s no doubt in my mind that players who are new to the game throw away hole cards that are actually winners because they’re too embarrased to ask for help. This happens a lot with hands that have multiple winners, such as when the 5 community cards make a Full House or Straight Flush. That simply cannot happen in an Internet poker room, assuming you’ve stayed in until the showdown, of course. However, one thing the computer can’t do for you is give you back the cards once you’ve folded your hand.
Following the showdown, the chips are distributed to the winner(s), the deck is shuffled, the dealer “button” is moved one player to the left, blind bets are placed, the pocket cards are dealt and it starts all over again. Hopefully this made the procedures of the game a little more clear to you, but it’s really just the tip of the iceberg.
If you have never played Hold ‘em poker before, you first need to understand just how it proceeds. Fortunately, it’s one of those games, like Blackjack or backgammon, that’s easy to learn. Unfortunately, it takes a fair amount of time and effort to become really good at Hold ‘em, but don’t worry because it’s not nuclear physics and if you do as I say, I’ll turn you into a winning player. After all, that’s why you’re here, right? And, I should mention (as a little motivator) that the rewards can be considerable. Setting aside all those fabulous multimillion dollar tournaments for the moment, it’s not unreasonable for a very good player to generate a profit of 1 to 2 “big bets” per hour off a minimum total bankroll of 400 big bets, all on a reasonably consistent basis. To use an example, most limit poker games are described by their small bet/big bet size, like a $10/$20 limit Hold ‘em game. What this means is that the minimum bet is $10 in the early part of the game and it goes up to $20 in the later part. Of course, raises are permitted (also with a limit; usually 3 or 4), so you might find yourself betting as much $200 or more on a single hand, which is why you need a bankroll of at least $8000 to play a game like that. But, if you’re good, that $8000 bankroll might very well generate an income of $600 per week, or $30,000 per year, if you play 20 or so hours a week.
I’ll cover bankroll requirements, standard deviation and all that math stuff in later lessons, but let me clarify something about “minimum total bankroll” before we get too far. What I mean by that term is the amount of $$$ you should have set aside as risk capital for this adventure, just like I recommend for playing Blackjack. The reality is that most of you probably won’t set up a separate account for your poker play because you have an alternate form of income (a job) that allows you to “refresh” your bankroll, should it become depleted. If that’s the case, what you need is at least 100 top bets ($1000 for a 5/10 game, for example) on deposit in your casino account and available to you at all times, especially if you’re playing on a regular basis. If you’re nervous about leaving your $$$ at the casino and prefer to deposit before you play, then 50 top bets should (but won’t always) suffice for a 3-4 hour playing session.
These “return on investment” numbers may impress you, but if they also scare you, don’t worry because there are plenty of games where you can play for much less. Naturally, you’ll earn a lot less, but you’ll be learning at the same time, so it’ll be a decent investment. There are plenty of limit Hold ‘em games in the $.25/$.50 format that’ll need a bankroll of only $200. Probably the most popular on-line limit Hold ‘em game is the $1/$2 version, which requires a minimum total bankroll of only $800 and a “session” bankroll of just $200 or so. The beauty of Internet poker is that the casinos have very little overhead, so a low-limit game can be offered at the same cost as a $100/$200 game. And, as you’ll see when you get more into this, the casinos are making a fortune by offering these games. On a recent Saturday night, one poker room had almost 1000 tables in action, so at a rate of, say, 60 hands per hour, and an average rake (percentage of the pot) of only $1 per round of play, they were taking in (literally “raking” in) $1 x 1000 x 60 = $60,000 an hour! And believe me, that’s a conservative figure. Of course, Saturday night is also a peak time for them and I’m sure they don’t do nearly as well on a Tuesday morning, but you get the idea: there’s a lot of $$$ to be made at poker on both sides of the fence, so why not get your share of it?
By the way, the method by which the Internet poker rooms earn their profit makes them a totally disinterested party to how well you do, because any $$$ you make doesn’t come from them, but from the other players. As such, you just don’t hear all the whining, “this game is rigged”, etc. ad nauseum, that you hear about Blackjack and other games at Internet casinos. The on-line poker rooms have a vested interest in seeing to it that you play in an honest game and, while I have no doubt that there are players out there who can and will cheat if possible, the poker rooms claim to have a handle on it, particularly collusion between players, like one being at the same table with a cohort while talking to each other on the phone. In any event, this isn’t likely to happen at a $1/$2 game, but it has to be a concern as you move up in your level of play and protecting yourself is something that I’ll cover as we move on.
A big area of growth in the online casino business is, without a doubt, poker rooms. When I say “poker”, I mean the type of poker played at a table with others, not video poker, although as you’ll see they both have a lot in common, not the least of which is the fact that a player can gain an advantage if the conditions are right and you know what you’re doing. Perhaps you’ve played some poker at home with friends or have given it a go at a brick-and-mortar casino or even on-line. I have done all of them, although not extensively, especially when it comes to playing in the poker rooms at the casinos near me. The big drawback for me has been that “live” games are slow, there are a bunch of rules that I’m unfamiliar with (stuff like “no ‘string’ bets”, “don’t splash your chips”, etc.) and I’m not one for looking my opponent in the eye whilst I try to take their $$$. Of course, I sort of do that when playing Blackjack, but I really don’t consider the dealer my “opponent.” He or she is just an employee of the casino, which is my real opponent and, truth be told, most Blackjack dealers are rooting for me to win because then I might tip them.
But my big problem with table poker has always been the fact that it’s so damned slow. A table poker game may proceed at a rate of 35 to 40 hands per hour, versus a Blackjack game that will go maybe 60 hands per hour at a minimum and 200+ hands per hour when I’m alone at the table. I can usually play Video Poker at 500 or more hands per hour, so any game in the 40 hands per hour category does nothing for me in terms of satisfying my urge for “action”. With me, it’s simple: if I have an edge, I want to play as quickly as possible, so long as the speed doesn’t affect the accuracy of my playing decisions. Another consideration has also been the basic fact that it takes a fair amount of skill to make $40-$50 per hour at table poker but that’s fairly easy to do at Blackjack, if you have a big enough bankroll.
On the flip side, the nice thing about table poker is that you don’t have to hide your skill from the casino, because they earn their profits from a “rake” of the bets at a table, so they really don’t care who wins. In fact, skillful poker players are hailed as some sort of folk hero, judging by all the publicity that tournament winners receive at events like The World Series of Poker that’s held every year in Las Vegas. It should be the same for skillful Blackjack players and, to a degree, that’s the case when it comes to tournaments, but I’ve always felt that the casinos are a little leery about hosting such events because of the fear that hoards of card counters will descend upon them, when in fact, card counting is of limited value in a tournament. However, I will say that a good portion – probably a majority – of those who enter the “high stakes” Blackjack tournaments are counters and what else are they going to do in between tournament rounds?
Okay, let’s drop the philosophical stuff and get back to the topic of making $$$ at table poker. I don’t know if you’ve experienced an on-line poker casino, but it was a revelation for me when I downloaded the software of a couple of them. What I found was poker in an automated format. It’s literally click and play with all types of nifty features that would be impossible to incorporate at a brick-and-mortar version: no sweating over the “etiquette” of the game because you can’t break a rule if you tried; the total of the pot is displayed and updated bet-by-bet (helpful when figuring the odds of a play, which I’ll get into later) and you are basically anonymous, beyond displaying your “handle” and, most of all, the game proceeds very quickly, at least twice as fast as most games in a brick-and-mortar casino. I’m constantly fascinated by the technology that is developed for the Internet and on-line poker is no different.
Think of the possibilities. Not sure if a Flush beats a Straight? No, problem, just tape one of those “cheat sheets” to your monitor and you’re set. In fact, you can have all types of helpful information right next to you as you play, which is something neither of us is likely to do at a “real” table. Well, that got me thinking maybe the world needed a “GameMaster’s Poker School” that was designed to teach people how to play a winning game of poker – Hold ‘em poker, in particular – just as I have tried to do with Blackjack. Also, because of the very nature of the on-line games, poker played on the ‘Net is less of a “people” game and more of a “mathematical” game, although I won’t rule out the human element entirely. That said, it’s still a game of probability, expected value and return on investment, just like Blackjack and Video Poker and, like those other games, it’s relatively easy to calculate what can happen when there’s only 52 cards in a deck.
Because all of the on-line poker rooms that I’ve visited up to this point allow you to try out their software in a play-money mode, the opportunities to practice your game against real, live opponents are plentiful and instructive. By their very nature, the play-money games aren’t necessarily a reflection of how things will go for you in a real-money game (the play-money games can best be described as “loose”, in the sense that raises come quick and often and you cannot bluff very effectively), but they do have considerable value. First of all, if you can’t win at a play-money game, you simply aren’t ready for the real-money version. Plus, playing for “fun” gets you familiar with how the software works and it’ll give you the opportunity to not only test out my ideas, but to get organized so that you have the information I’ll give you set up in a way that it’s quickly and easily available.
I should mention that although I’ll be focusing primarily on Hold ‘em poker as it’s played on-line, much of what I’ll show you will apply to “live” poker games as well. In time, if you do as I say, you’ll memorize most of the information you need to win and that should enable you to do well at your local, friendly brick-and-mortar casino, not to mention a poker night with “da boyz and/or gurlz.” And yes, poker has been – for quite some time – a male-dominated activity but the Internet changes all that. Don’t want people to know your gender? Fine, pick an ambiguous handle (“golfnut”, “9 iron” and “wingnut” are some players I met recently) and the world won’t know (or care) whether you’re a man or woman, or something in between; all that matters is how you play. Of course, if you’re “Sexylady”, “Hooters” or “Psychoboy”, people are going to make some guess as to your gender, although they may be totally wrong and I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. In my case, I use “Aceten” as a handle and I really don’t care what people think I am; I’m there for the $$$, period.
Okay let’s get started. Just like my Blackjack School, this will unfold as a series of lessons that present various concepts, show you how to learn them and, as always, will include some “homework” that’ll reinforce what I’m teaching. Just how many lessons this will turn out to be remains to be seen, but my guess is that it will be much bigger than the Blackjack School, which currently stands at 24 lessons. But for starters, here’s what I intend to cover:
The Basics of Hold ‘em Poker
Limit Hold ‘em
Pot Limit Hold ‘em
No Limit Hold ‘em
The Mathematics of Poker
Money Management
Playing Strategies
Poker Tournaments
I’ll begin with limit Hold ‘em because that game is, in my opinion, the most popular and is the easiest to learn, plus it’ll form a good base of reference for the other types.
