Because most versions of Hold ‘em played in a poker room (real and virtual) have a dealer that’s employed by the house, a rotating disk ( the “button”) designates which player gets to act as the dealer for the hand, even though they won’t touch any cards but their own. The reason why the poker rooms go to all this trouble of designating the dealer for each hand is because from a strategic point of view, the dealer’s spot is the best. Of course, the dealer “button” rotates around the table so that each player has an equal opportunity to act in the dealer’s position; basically once every 9 or 10 hands, if you’re at a full table.

The advantage of being the dealer is that you get to act after all the other players, except in the pre-flop betting, where you still have position on everyone other than the Small and Big Blinds. This position advantage is significant for several reasons:

• You may “safely” play more hands in general
• The opportunity to steal the blinds is greater
• Big hands like A-A and K-K or A-K can be disguised somewhat

To me, the best part about playing on the button is that I can, from a mathematical point of view, play more hands profitably. What might be a wasted bet “under the gun” can be profitable when made from the button position. For example, one of the most popular hands of all, J -10 offsuit, is highly over-rated as a starting hand in early position (and, in fact, should be folded), but it does become slightly profitable on the button. The saving grace is that this hand makes a lot of Straights, but it’s usually a loser if that doesn’t happen. Even so, if several players ahead of you “limp” (just call) into the pot, the hand of J-10o is certainly worth one bet. With a lot of players, it usually takes a hand like a Straight to win the pot, so from the button, J-10o is frequently worthwhile to play. Of course, one of the Blinds may raise, which will make the J-10o a fold, but that’s poker. If you wanted guarantees, you would be at some life insurance site, not here.

While it’s really a topic that deserves its own lesson, stealing the blinds is a lot easier when you’re on the button. Don’t kid yourself, though. A lot of players almost expect a raise from the player on the button – it’s known as a “position” raise – so you can get burned if you do it too often. However, with a decent, if not great, hand that you’d be playing anyway, a well-timed raise is warranted and it may pay off if the Blinds have demonstrated that they’re prone to folding. At the best, you may win the pot right then and there, but if not, perhaps you’ll drive some trash hands out of the game, which may give your hand a better shot at winning. At the worst, you’ll get reraised by one of the Blinds, in which case you should refer to the chart I’ll be presenting for how to play the hand at that point.

But before I do that, let’s look at the idea of concealing a big hand when you play it from the button. Generally, in low-limit hold ‘em games a raise from an early position sends a signal that you have a “big” hand, so most will fold behind you – which is not all bad – but it does tend to cut down on your earnings. However, if you do that same raise from the button, many players will think it’s the “position raise” I mentioned earlier, so they might call, which is lovely. Of course, if you get re-raised, all the better. When it gets back to you, reraise if appropriate and you’re now involved in a “monster” pot with probably the best hand.

It’s obvious that being on the button has its advantages, but it’s not a license to play trash like J-6o, 10-5s and so forth. You still need to play decent hands here, but a lot more hands will qualify as “decent”, so it’s definitely a place where you can make some $$$. One more point: If the player to your immediate left is inclined to fold a lot, then you should look for opportunities to “buy the button.” What this means is that even after the button has moved to this person, you may want to raise as though you were still on the button yourself, because if you can get this person to fold, you’ll be the last to act during the hand after the Blinds have played. Of course, if this player – who can be described as “tight” – raises you back, it’s probably time to fold. But, once again, my chart will show you how to react. Okay, here’s the chart and you’ll see that it follows the same format as the others, which is to list the minimum hands needed to bet from the button. The options you have are usually to raise or reraise, call or fold, just as I show in my other charts. What I want to stress is that this chart is appropriate for limit Hold ‘em games and, like most of my others, will make you appear as a “tight” player, which may or may not suit your style of play

(Source: GameMaster)

This chart will show you the minimum hands needed to make a play depending upon your position, working backward from the “button” (acting dealer for this hand) to the Big Blind. The options you have are usually to raise or reraise, call or fold, just as I show in my other charts. What I want to stress is that this chart is appropriate for limit Hold ‘em games and, like most of my others, will make you appear as a “tight” player, which may or may not suit your style of play. If you want to be looser in nature, the chart can easily accommodate you with some simple modifications, as you’ll see.

While I think it’s important for anyone to play within some sort of comfort zone (why bet your hard-earned $$$ if you’re uncomfortable?), the fact is that we have to loosen up our play as the number of opponents decreases. A hand of 5-5 may not be all that strong in a game with 10 players, but head-to-head with someone it will often be the winner, if it’s played aggressively. And that’s not something I can teach you – at least not in this lesson – how to get a feel for the “texture” of the game you’re in; whether to lay back or be out there firing at every pot. Whatever your choice, this chart will at least let you know if your play is fundamentally sound.

So, take a look at it and I’ll see you down below for a thorough discussion when you’re ready.

Notes and comments

To better explain what I’m trying to show you here, let’s discuss a few examples, starting with the cards to play when you’re on the button. Occupying the button is, of course, the primo position in Hold’em, mainly because all the other players, except for the Blinds, must act before you on the first round of betting. And, after the flop, everyone still in the hand has to act before you and that gives you a lot more hands you can consider playing.

If you go across the chart on the “0″ position, you’ll see that the minimum hand for reraising is K-K. What this means is that you can feel free to raise any number of previous raises if you hold K-K or A-A because the math is on your side. If the pot hasn’t been raised by the time it’s your turn to act, you should raise if you hold 10-10 or higher, but if your raise is reraised, you should raise that only with K-K or A-A. Anything less and you should just call. Continuing across, you can see that a hand of 8-8, for example, should not raise on the button (and obviously not reraise), but it’s worth calling any raises that have been made in front of you. In the far right column, you’ll see that a pair of 2s should call one bet only; in other words, dump them in a raised pot. So, what if you have 5-5 and you call, then the Big Blind raises the pot? Well, the chart says you need 8-8 to call that raise, so you should fold. Oh, I know the flop will have at least one 5 in it the first time you do that and you’ll curse me, but this chart is based upon long-term probabilities, not what may happen in one particular hand, so while that’ll sting a bit, the $$$ you save in the long run will justify the play, I assure you.

Let’s now look at the “UTG” (under the gun) position, which is the first player to bet pre-flop. The chart says you may reraise with K-K or A-A, but of course no bet has been made yet. My advice here is to “limp” into the pot by just calling the BB bet, then reraise any raisers when it comes around to you. The reason for that, particularly in a typical limit game, is upfront raises cause a lot of players to fold and you’ll usually win only the blinds if you do it. But, by reraising, you’ll now trap a few players into staying with the hand. Of course, one of those players may hold A-A against your K-K, but if you wanted guarantees, you’d be visiting a bank Website. I absolutely love to make that play with A-A, especially in no-limit tournaments, but it’ll work well in a limit game, too.

Okay, back to playing under the gun. While the “limp and reraise” tactic applies to K-K or better, a hand of Q-Q is one with which to raise, but not reraise. While you can limp with Queens, you can’t really generate much income that way, so my advice is to raise with them to open the betting. Sure, you’ll get called by every Ace out there, but all the lower pairs will call, too. It’s just wiser to only call any reraises with Queens and see what the flop brings. Obviously, if an Ace or King is in the flop, you have to proceed very carefully, if not fold. In the UTG spot, you can call any number of raises with Jacks or better. The far right column shows that 9-9 should call only one raise and that’s true of 10-10, at least in this position. Were you close to the button , then you could call any number of raises with pocket 10s.

This “sliding scale” of hands is what allows you to easily open up (loosen) your game. If you’re a kamikaze-type of player, then ignore all of the position limitations for pocket pairs and have at it. You’ll have some very good days, but on the bad days, you’ll all but bleed $$$ across the table. That said, I fully recognize the necessity for loosening up as the number of players at the table decreases. That’s easily handled with this chart by mentally moving the UTG spot closer to the button. For example, if you’re playing at a table with 5 players, make the UTG spot # 5 on the chart, which means you’ll still reraise only with K-K or better, but now you’ll raise with Jacks or better as an opening bet. In a 5-handed game, you can call all bets with 9-9 or better when in the UTG spot and call a raise with 7-7 or better. Thus, in a 5-handed game, you’d fold only 6s or less in a raised pot, if you’re under the gun. See how that works? If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to email me.

As we work our way through the minimum starting hands one should play in limit Hold ‘em, I thought now would be a good time to address pocket pairs (2-2 to A-A), those two lovely cards that are known only to you; cards that can make you a lot of $$$ – or lose you a lot of $$$ – depending upon how (and when) they’re played.

Generally, there are no great secrets for extracting a maximum profit from your pocket pair because they’re pretty much a straight-forward proposition. That’s because a Pair of anything is the lowest “made” hand in poker, thus even a pair of Aces is beat by 2s over 3s, Trip 4s, any Straight, etc., etc. So, for the most part, the only way you’ll win with a pocket pair is to either have a “big” Pair that holds up, or you improve on it at or after the flop. Big pocket pairs (J-J and higher) will often be enough to win a pot, particularly if you’re playing against 3 or fewer opponents, but they constitute only 4/13ths of all the possible pairs that you’ll get. Pocket Aces, Kings, Queens and Jacks may put rice in your bowl, but winning with the other 9/13ths is what keeps that rice in there. Before I get into my strategy chart for pocket pairs, let’s cover a few basic terminology and mathematical facts about them.

Pocket Pair Facts

• The probability of being dealt any pocket pair is 5.9% (16 to 1 against).
• The probability of being dealt a specific pocket pair (A-A, 3-3, etc.) is 0.45% (220 to 1 against).
• A “set” is formed with a pocket pair, plus another card of that rank on “the board” (the community cards).
• Trips are formed with one card in the pocket and a pair of the same rank on the board. Obviously, a set is much stronger than Trips, so remember the terminology as we go through the lessons; there is a difference in how each is played.
• The probability of hitting a “set” on the flop is 10.8% or 8.26 to 1 against.
• The probability of hitting quads on the flop, when holding a pocket pair, is 0.25% (about 399 to 1 against).
• The probability of hitting a Full House on the flop, when holding a pocket pair, is 0.74% (a 133 to 1 shot).
• A general rule for playing pocket pairs is this: If you hold 9s or lower and don’t make a set on the flop, fold. No set, no bet.

(Source: GameMaster)

As we work our way through the minimum starting hands one should play in limit Hold ‘em, I thought now would be a good time to address pocket pairs (2-2 to A-A), those two lovely cards that are known only to you; cards that can make you a lot of $$$ – or lose you a lot of $$$ – depending upon how (and when) they’re played.

Generally, there are no great secrets for extracting a maximum profit from your pocket pair because they’re pretty much a straight-forward proposition. That’s because a Pair of anything is the lowest “made” hand in poker, thus even a pair of Aces is beat by 2s over 3s, Trip 4s, any Straight, etc., etc. So, for the most part, the only way you’ll win with a pocket pair is to either have a “big” Pair that holds up, or you improve on it at or after the flop. Big pocket pairs (J-J and higher) will often be enough to win a pot, particularly if you’re playing against 3 or fewer opponents, but they constitute only 4/13ths of all the possible pairs that you’ll get. Pocket Aces, Kings, Queens and Jacks may put rice in your bowl, but winning with the other 9/13ths is what keeps that rice in there. Before I get into my strategy chart for pocket pairs, let’s cover a few basic terminology and mathematical facts about them.

Pocket Pair Facts

• The probability of being dealt any pocket pair is 5.9% (16 to 1 against).
• The probability of being dealt a specific pocket pair (A-A, 3-3, etc.) is 0.45% (220 to 1 against).
• A “set” is formed with a pocket pair, plus another card of that rank on “the board” (the community cards).
• Trips are formed with one card in the pocket and a pair of the same rank on the board. Obviously, a set is much stronger than Trips, so remember the terminology as we go through the lessons; there is a difference in how each is played.
• The probability of hitting a “set” on the flop is 10.8% or 8.26 to 1 against.
• The probability of hitting quads on the flop, when holding a pocket pair, is 0.25% (about 399 to 1 against).
• The probability of hitting a Full House on the flop, when holding a pocket pair, is 0.74% (a 133 to 1 shot).
• A general rule for playing pocket pairs is this: If you hold 9s or lower and don’t make a set on the flop, fold. No set, no bet.

(Source: GameMaster)

Just as I did for the Big Blind bet, I’ve created a chart that will eventually form part of my Hold ‘em Poker Basic Strategy Matrix. You’ll see that the chart is divided into three categories: hands that can raise and/or reraise, hands that can call any number of raises, but not reraise and hands where you should just complete the blind. If a hand is not on this list, you should fold. An important note here is that this chart is very conservative and you’ll appear to be some sort of “rock” if you use it all the time. Should you find yourself in a loose game, you can safely loosen up some yourself, particularly when you have a hand that’s in the “complete only” category. For example, I recommend that a hand of Q-9o is about as low as you should go, but in a loose game, a hand of Q-8o or even Q-7o is playable if the SB bet is 50% of the opening bet. If your SB bet is one-third of the opening bet, then you should pretty much stick with what I show in the chart and not loosen up at all.

As always, each hand is “keyed” by the higher card and all I show is the minimum hand, either suited or off-suit. Any hand that’s higher than the one I show is also playable within its category, of course.

If you have a hand that’s in the “complete only” category and the bet is raised, you should fold. The real judgment call comes when you complete such a hand and then the player in the Big Blind raises; you’re already committed to a full-sized bet and it’s difficult to fold at this point. Personally, I fold in that situation only if my cards aren’t a pair, aren’t suited or both aren’t a 10 or higher. I’m still working on the math for this, so be warned that my strategy in that particular situation is just an educated guess at this point, but it seems to work fine.

** The hand of Q-Q in the Small Blind is played much like it is in the Big Blind, sometimes you should reraise and sometimes you shouldn’t. While I hate to be that imprecise, all I can do is blame it on the “texture”, which I already pointed out is subjective in nature. It would be a mistake to always reraise out of the SB with pocket Queens, just as it would be a mistake to never reraise with them. The best I can say is to reraise with pocket Queens if the initial raise was from a player on or near the button, or if it came from a “maniac” who raises a lot, regardless of where s/he is sitting. If the pot hasn’t been raised by the time it’s your bet, raising with Q-Q in the Small Blind is the best move in a game with less than 5 players, especially if the BB is prone to folding.

(Source: GameMaster)

Another mandatory bet in Hold ‘em poker is the Small Blind (SB), which is usually – but not always – half that of the Big Blind (BB) bet. So, in the typical $10/$20 game that we use as the “base” game in these lessons, the BB bet would be $10 and the SB will be $5. This 50% “rule” doesn’t always apply, however. In a $3-$6 game for example, the SB is often $1, not $1.50 and that difference has considerable impact on playing your hand from the SB position.

Obviously, the SB bet requires a lot more thought than the BB bet, primarily because it costs you a certain amount of $$$ to “complete” the bet, even in an unraised pot. As you learned in lesson 5, the primary decision to be made when playing in the Big Blind is how to deal with a raise, while the easiest decision to make in the BB is to check. In the SB position, the easiest decison is to fold, but if you do that too often it’ll end up costing you a lot of $$$. So we have to find a balance point that defines when we fold or complete the SB. I don’t want to imply that we’ll never raise or reraise out of the SB because there are times when that’s the proper play, but 90% of the time our decision will be to either fold or complete. Often the decision to fold is made because the bet’s been raised, but there will be times when we’ll fold simply because the cards we have don’t warrant any further investment.

Proper play from the Small Blind is complicated by the fact that if you decide to complete the bet and stay in the game, you’re still vulnerable to a raise from the BB player, plus you’ll be the first player to act on the next round of betting. Every round of play is different, of course, but you could easily find yourself completing the SB in an unraised pot and then the player in the BB raises. If all the others still in just call, you must now make a full-size bet to stick with the hand and it’s against someone who has raised in early position. That usually indicates a very strong hand or it’s a bluff by someone who wants to win the pot without a showdown, although that doesn’t usually happen in limit games. Let’s say you’re in the SB of a $10/$20 game, so your investment is $5 and you decide to complete the bet with another $5 and then the BB raises. The bet is going to come around to you at $10, assuming no other player re-raises the BB (not likely if they didn’t raise the first time around, but not impossible, either), so now what do you do? As you may have guessed, the mathematics of the situation hold the answer to this dilemma.

Betting the SB isn’t as cut-and-dried as betting the Big Blind because your initial investment is obviously smaller and a lot more depends upon the “texture” of the game. I don’t like discussing stuff like “texture” because it’s subjective in nature, but there’s no getting around it in poker, so let’s just deal with it. The game you’re in may be “loose”, in the sense that 50% or more of the players are seeing the flop, even when the bet’s been raised. That’s not the only definition of a “loose” game, but I think you get the idea. (By the way, don’t get the words “loose” and “lose” confused, as do so many people on the ‘Net. The word “lose” means to not win, such as, “I always lose when I play the slots.” The word “loose” means not tight, like “The lugnut on that wheel is loose.” With me? The English lesson is over.) Anyway, a loose game will typically see a lot of preflop raises (and calls), which can be a profitable situation for the wise player who plays good hands, whether from the blinds or not.

But when it comes to playing in a loose game from the Small Blind, you often have to decide if you’re defending your blind from someone who’s trying to “steal” it or from someone who’s playing a real hand or even someone who’s just throwing their $$$ away. And that’s just a loose game. If the game you’re in is “tight” or if the pot has been raised by a player who seldom bets any opening hand, it’s another matter entirely, of course. In a loose game with a lot of callers, you must pretty well figure that it’ll take “the nuts” to win, but if you’re up against just one other player, top pair will often do the trick. See what I mean about “texture”? I could go on and on about this, but what it really boils down to is that a single, set-in-stone strategy for playing the Small Blind bet isn’t really feasible. You’ll have to make some adjustments “on the fly”, so to speak, but I can at least give you a good, solid starting point.

(Source: GameMaster)

In most games of Hold ‘em poker, the big blind (BB) is a full-sized bet for the first round of play. For example, in a $10/$20 game, the BB is $10, which basically means you only have to check in order to see a flop. No matter how bad your cards are (yes, even the proverbial “worst hand” of 7-2o), you should never fold a big blind hand in an unraised pot, because lightening does strike at times and you’re already commited to the $$$ anyway. Of course, you may raise or reraise if you wish and we’ll talk about that in just a bit.

However, the most important decision for a player in the BB is usually whether or not to call a raise (or two or three) and/or re-raise. A lot of players feel they must “protect” their blind bet from others who would steal it, so they automatically call any raise even though they may have that 7-2o as pocket cards. And don’t kid yourself; it’s very worthwhile to try and steal the blinds, especially when you consider that the expected value (EV) for a hand in a somewhat “loose” $10/$20 Hold ‘em game is about $1, maybe $1.25. So, let’s say a player on the button, who bets in front of the blinds pre-flop, has a decent, though not great hand like A-6s and s/he has noticed that the players in the blinds usually fold to a raise. If everyone else has folded up to this point, the player on the button (the “acting” dealer for this hand) should raise with the idea of stealing the blinds. Unfortunately, such a tactic won’t work every time, so the expected value of such a play is somewhat less than the $15 in the blinds ($5 in the small blind and $10 in the big blind), but whatever the EV is, it’s more than $1 and is undoubtedly many times higher than the EV for A-6s played all the way through from the button. Even if our semi-bluffer has to play out the hand, s/he’s not sitting dead in the water with cards like A-6s, so the pot can still be won, even if one or another (or both) of the blinds call the raise. But we’ll talk more about that when I discuss playing from the button in a future lesson.

Let’s get back to our hand in the big blind. Most of the time all we have to do is check the hand and we’ll see the flop. But what if the bet has been raised from the button? Or from the first bettor (“under the gun”) or a player a little further along? Should we automatically call the raise? Of course, the answer is a resounding “no”. Like most other situations in poker, what you should do depends primarily upon what cards you hold. You’ve already made one bet and those $$$ are gone if you fold, yet you have to remember that for the rest of the hand you’ll be betting first, so you still need some decent cards to call one raise, let alone two or more. Then again, with the right cards, you can not only call several raises, but actually reraise and start building a “monster” pot. But monster pots are won by monster hands, so let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. Because of the unique status of the big blind bet, I’m going to give you a separate list of minimum starting hands to use when you’re in that position. As you know from Lesson 3, most hands that you’ll get aren’t playable at all, but because we’ve already made a full bet in the big blind, it’s okay to loosen up a bit when a raise has been made in front of us.

Like all of the other starting hands, these have been determined through mathematical analysis (mostly simulations) on the Turbo Texas Hold ‘em software that I’ve talked about before. There are no guesses, no “gut feelings” or any other voodoo involved here; either a hand is profitable or it isn’t. If it isn’t profitable, you won’t find it in this list. In fact, I may have been a little too tight, because trying to hit the averages for something like this isn’t easy. But if you’ll go with these hands, I think you’ll like your long-term results, so at least give it a try. As I’ve discussed before, the list of hands I’m going to present here will eventually be a part of my Hold ‘em Poker Basic Strategy Matrix, which we’re building layer by layer.

I’ve arranged the hands for this list in three categories: hands that can raise and/or reraise, hands that can call any number of raises, but not reraise and hands that can call just one raise, otherwise fold. Any other hand not on this list should check in an unraised pot or fold if raised. Rather than listing each separate hand, I’m once again showing the minimum, based upon the high card in the hand so any hand that is better than the minimum may also be played. For example, in the case of a Queen, the minimum to raise and/or reraise is Q-Q; the minimum to call all raises is Q-xs and the minimum to call one raise is Q-9o, which includes Q-10o and Q-Jo. (Remember all the symbols? Here’s a quick review: “x” means any card, “s” means suited and “o” stands for off-suit or unsuited). Any other hand with a Queen as the highest card should check, but fold if raised. It goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway: If a hand can raise or reraise, it can obviously call all raises and if a hand can call all raises, it can call just one. Remember, just because a hand can raise or reraise, that doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll do it, although you’ll likely be making a mistake if you don’t. A lot of people like to “slowplay” hands like A-A or K-K, but they’re also the first to complain when someone – a player who may have folded to a pre-flop raise – beats them by drawing out to a Flush.
Okay, enough preaching, here’s the list:

Notes and comments:

Take a look at the first line, which covers hands where an Ace is the highest card. Reading over from the left, you can reraise any raises if you hold A-A in the big blind. The “slash” tells you that a hand of A-Ko or higher (which is A-Ks) and AQs can raise from the big blind if the pot hasn’t been raised yet, but you should just call if another player has raised in front of you, particularly if that raise came from an early position. Continuing to the right, you can see an Ace that is “suited” with any other card can call any number of raises, but if the other card is not suited, then A-10 is the bottom limit. That includes A-Jo and A-Qo, but any other combination should call only one raise, as is indicated in the third column. So, if you have A-3o and are facing two or more raises, you should fold. I know that will seem either wrong or downright amazing to many of you, because most players in limit Hold ‘em games will cling to A-xo like it was life itself, but that’s a serious mistake whenever two or more raises have been made in front of you. The math doesn’t lie (neither do I, for that matter). As you work down the ranks (remember – Jack, 10, 9, etc. are “ranks”), you’ll see that our play tightens up. For a hand where 10 is the higher card, we do not raise from the big blind with 10-10, but we do call any number of raises with it; in fact we’ll also do it with a 10 that is suited with any other card. But, if the other card is off-suit, then 10-8 and 10-9 should call only one raise, otherwise we fold. This means you should fold any hand of 10-7o or lower if the pot has been raised. Of course, if there hasn’t been a raise, you’ll check with 10-anything, because you already have a bet in the pot. And yes, you’re reading it right; you can call raises with 9-xs from the big blind.

The 8 is the mid-point of the ranks; 6 ranks are below it and 6 ranks are above it, so hands where the higher card is 8 or less must be played “tightly” to avoid turning them into losers. Oh, I know all too well about losing a big hand to someone that held 8-2o all the way to the river, but those are the people that pay our rent, so don’t get too upset when it happens. That stinging sensation will gradually fade. But if the bet has been raised, you simply must fold hands lower than 8-7o, no doubt about it. A glance at the chart will show you that hands where the higher card is 8 or less and are off-suit should call a raise only when they’re connected, that is, there are no gaps between the low card and the high card. If they’re suited, we do allow a litlle gapping because we have some Flush potential. But as we get down to the 4s and 3s, we don’t even allow for that, because most Flushes are won by the Ace or King, so our 2 or 3 has very little potential in that regard.

Speaking of 2s and 3s, you should take note of the fact that, even as a pair, those cards have very little potential. Call one raise maximum with them and if you don’t improve on the flop, drop them like a hot potato. Sure, I know the first time you do that, the card you need to make a “set” (trips where two of the cards are in the pocket) will sure enough come on the turn, but in the long run – we are in this for the long-run, remember – you’ll save a lot of $$$ by getting away from those hands quickly. They’ll either work or they won’t. Most of the time they won’t. Just a quick note on playing Q-Q and J-J from the big blind: I didn’t place a “re-raise/raise” indicator on them because it’s really a borderline play. Certainly you can feel comfortable in making the first raise of the pot with them, but you probably shouldn’t re-raise unless you think someone’s trying to steal the blinds; in that case, blaze away with both barrels. However, if the small blind folds behind you and there has been only one raise from a player in late position (on the button or within two places of it), then re-raising either Q-Q or J-J may be a worthwhile move. Again, it all depends. If the player who raised has cobwebs on his chips (as one author very fittingly puts it), then calling is probably your best play. Remember, even a pair of Queens is all but useless if an Ace or King comes on the flop. Okay, get your homework, then go play a lot of poker!

(Source: GameMaster)

The other day I was dealt an exciting hand that got me thinking about longshots – both the kind you want to hit and the kind to avoid – so this lesson is the result. I was dealt the Ace and Queen of spades as my pocket cards in a game of Hold ‘em and, as you hopefully know by now, it’s a pretty good way to start. But it got even better when the flop came: Ks, Js, 9d. Now I had a 4-card Royal Flush and needed to catch only the 10 of spades to complete it. “Only” is a relative word, of course because the odds against me catching the 10 of spades on the turn was 1 in 47 (I’ve seen 5 cards to this point, so 47 are left and only one of them is the 10 of spades). Of course, any 10 would make a Straight and any spade would make a Flush, but darn it, I wanted the Royal!

My interest in completing the Royal was not just ego-driven, because the casino where I was playing offers a bonus to anyone who finishes a hand with a Royal. So, not only was I guaranteed to win the pot for the hand (you don’t even have to worry about a tie with a Royal), but I’d also get $500 thrown in as well. I knew the odds against me making it were huge, I’ve drawn to enough 4-card Royals at Video Poker to know that, but at least here I had two shots at it – one on the turn and one on the river. Because it wouldn’t matter when I got the card, only if I got it, I started to think about, first, what I was going to buy with the $500 (I ‘m an optimistic rascal) and second, what kind of expected value is added to our poker hands by such bonuses?

You all remember “expected value” (EV), right? It’s a mathematical calculation based upon what will happen over many hands of play in the case of poker and Blackjack. In other words, we won’t always win with pocket Aces in Hold ‘em, but over thousands of hands we’ll win enough so that we can put a value on it. For example, if we win with AA 50% of the time, on average, then this starting hand has an EV of 50% of all the $$$ we bet in that situation. Of course we can’t pin down the exact size of our bets because it’ll be different from hand to hand, although over a period of time we can probably come up with a fairly accurate average number. But in the case of a Royal Flush bonus, we know it’s a fixed amount so all we have to do is calculate how often we’ll get one and that’ll give us an EV per hand.

Why is it important to know how much EV is added to each hand by a Royal Flush bonus? Well, it isn’t really, but it’s a simple calculation, so why not? Every little bit helps, you know, especially when you’re starting out. Combine bonuses like these with the fact that most online poker rooms have fairly low rakes (compared to brick-and-mortar card rooms), plus there’s no dealer to tip and you have a definite leg-up over your “real-life” counterpart. If nothing else, the cost of gaining some experience at poker will be somewhat lower if you do it online rather than at a brick-and-mortar card room. But I digress.

Just what’s a Royal bonus worth, anyway? To figure it on a per-hand basis, we need to calculate the probability of getting a Royal and that will tell us how often we can expect, on average, to get one. To draw a Video Poker analogy here, we know that a Royal will occur, on average, about once every 40,000 hands in a 9/6 Jacks or Better game, which means the probability is 1 divided by 40,000 = 0.000025. Because that Royal will usually pay 800 for 1, it means that Royal Flushes add .000025 x 800 = 0.02 or 2% to the total return of a 9/6 Jacks game, which is 99.54%. In other words, if there were no Royal “bonus” in a Jacks VP game, the return would be only 97.54%. So does that mean we should expect to get a Royal once every 40,000 hands at Hold ‘em poker? Sadly no, because of the way the game is structured. At Video Poker, you are dealt 5 cards, may hold or fold any or all and then are dealt replacement cards, so you have a “universe” of 10 cards from which to make your Royal.

In Hold ‘em, you are dealt 2 pocket cards that you must keep if you want to keep playing the hand, then 5 more cards come if the hand is played to the end. The universe here is obviously only 7 cards, so it’s probably not too difficult to imagine that we can’t expect to get a Royal once every 40,000 hands. However, there is more than one way to make a Royal in Hold ‘em, just as there is in Video Poker. The first of those is to get a Royal dealt to you. This can happen at VP because you receive a 5-card hand and the probability of that occurring is 1 in 649,740. Well, the same thing can happen at Hold ‘em, because you can be dealt two suited Royal Flush cards in the pocket and then the flop can fill your Royal. The odds of that happening are exactly the same as getting one on the deal in Video Poker:1 in 649,740. Talk about long shots, eh?

But don’t dispair because there’s a much more common way for it to happen and that’s to have the Royal unfold like the one I had. Two suited Royal cards in the pocket, two on the flop and then draw the fifth on either the turn or the river. I’ll spare you the background math, but the probability of being dealt two suited Royal Flush cards is 1 in 33 (33.15 to be exact), then getting two of the three you need on the flop is 1 in 139 and finally, getting the 5th card on either the turn or river is 1 in 23 (23.25 to be exact). Multiply those three together: 33.15 x 139 x 23.25 and you get 1 in 107,133, which you can safely round to 1 in 100,000. If you’ll receive a $500 bonus for hitting a Royal, you can expect it to happen about once every 100,000 hands, so it’s worth $500 divided by 100,000 = $.005 or about a half-cent per hand.

So, how did my hand work out? If you remember, I had A-Q spades in the pocket, the flop came Ks, Js, 9d, so all I needed was the 10s. The turn was 3d, the river was 3h and I lost to a player holding Kc, 3s. Yep, he had a Full House and I had a busted Flush. Hey, that’s how it is in poker sometimes. Don’t worry, I’ll get over it, so lets talk about some other longshots.

These are the type of longshots to avoid. Or, if you won’t avoid the situation, at least make sure that the “pot odds” are rewarding you. In Lesson 2, I presented a chart of the various odds of completing a hand, such as a 4-card Flush and so forth. The hands presented there were the types of hands you’ll run into all the time, unlike the Royal Flush we discussed earlier. The hands I’m going to discuss here are also the type you’ll run into a lot, but in most cases you shouldn’t play them and the numbers will show you why. For example, you may find yourself with some pretty nice pocket cards like Ah,10h and the flop comes 2s, 6d, 7h. You don’t have much, other than a 3-card Flush draw and a double-inside Straight draw. But, were you to get the Flush, it would be the “nuts” and would beat any Straight that forms. But, with 2 cards to come, can you get what’s called a “runner-runner” to fill the hand? Certainly that’s possible, but the exact odds of success are pretty much against it happening, so you can waste a lot of $$$ in trying. Meantime, the guy with pocket Kings is betting every round and unless another Ace falls, he’s probably going to win the pot.

If you have a 3-card Flush, that means there are 10 cards of that suit remaining in the deck (remember that we don’t count anything we can’t see, so even though other players may also have cards of that suit, they don’t matter for purposes of calculating our odds). So, with 10 cards of the remaining 47 (52 minus the 2 pocket cards, minus the 3 cards on the flop) being cards that will help us and two chances to get them, it doesn’t seem like too bad a deal. But don’t forget that both of the last two cards have to be hearts (in this example) or we’ll have a hand worth basically nothing. Sure, you might win with an Ace-high, but don’t bet on it. Literally.

Nope, we need to hit two running hearts for this to work and the odds against that happening are an amazing 24 to 1. Believe me, I had to double-check my figures when I got that number because it seemed just too high to be correct, but it is. The quick mathematical solution is to figure the probability of getting a heart on the turn (10/47) or 0.212 and multiplying that by the probability of getting a heart on the river (9/46) or 0.195. Well, multiply 0.212 by 0.195 and you get 0.0415. Remember how I showed you to convert probability to odds in Lesson 2? First, subtract the probability of 4 from 100 and you’ll get 96. Now divide 96 by 4 and you’ll get 24 to 1 as the odds against. This obviously means that the value of the pot at the flop is going to have to be 25 times the bet you have to make in order for it to have a positive expectation. I’ve seen such a thing, but it’s very rare, so most of the time you should be folding your 3-card Flushes.

Now I realize there may be other reasons for staying with the hand, but the odds against making various hands that I outlined in Lesson 2 will guide you there. And certainly, if you had the same pocket cards but the Ace were a Jack, then “fuhgedaboudit”, because you wouldn’t be drawing to the “nut” Flush. Yet, a lot of players, particularly in low-limit games, will cling to a “suited” Ace (an Ace plus any card of the same suit) in the pocket until the bitter end. Don’t forget this: A dollar you don’t lose is a dollar earned. The object of this lesson is to cut down on the number of long-shot bets that we all make from time-to-time. Don’t get me wrong; if the pot odds are there, go for it. But if they’re not, then fold.

Okay, enough preaching. Here is a list of various hands you might find yourself with after the flop. In other words, you’ve seen five cards, two are yet to come and now you have to make a decision to bet or fold. This chart is really just a continuation of the chart I presented in Lesson 2:

Notes and comments: I’ve included the Ace-high hands because I’ve seen so many players hold onto their Aces with a death-grip, as I mentioned above. Now don’t get me wrong; Trip Aces will win most hands of Hold ‘em, but as this chart shows you it’ll happen only once every 33 times you hold a single Ace at the flop. For me, this type of chart removes the guesswork, “intuition” or whatever you care to call it, from the game. If the pot odds warrant the play, do it, otherwise fold. Oh, I fully realize that the first time you fold a 3-card Flush, the turn and river will bring the cards you needed, but that’ll be the exception, I assure you. As a quick review, the “Bet Multiplier” is something I presented in Lesson 2 and it’s a quick way to see if the bet you must make to stay in the hand has a positive EV. In a $1/$2 game, for example, if the bet you must make to stay in the hand is $1 and you’re drawing to a 3-card Flush, the pot should be at least $25. If the bet you must make is $2, the pot has to be $50 or you should fold.

(Source: GameMaster)

Notes and comments:

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.

(Source: GameMaster)

“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.

(Source: GameMaster)