Texas Holdem:

Shorthand Limit

Shorthand (tables of 6 or less people) is very popular on the Internet; in fact, most of the higher limit games are played shorthand. Thus, to make any sort of of money playing net poker, you really should learn how to play shorthand.

What type of game should I look for?

One of the most important skills at playing poker is simply playing the right game. Unless you just want to practice, there's no reason to play against other pros! You certainly can't expect to make money! The best way to tell if the game is easy or not is to look at the flop %. If it is 40 or higher, the game is good. If it's 25-30, stay away. Some sites express the flop % as average number of ppl at flop. This isn't as helpful, but generally go there if it says the average is 3 or more. More people going to the flop means that the quality of hands being played is lower. Thus, all you have to do is sit and wait to strike.

Preflop 

So what exactly are the good hands and the bad hands? Many books have been written about this, but I'll summarize what I briefly believe are the 'playable' hands.

One thing to remember is that hand values are relative, so a hand can be good under some situations and total trash under others. For example, if there has been a lot of action, like a raise and a reriase and then someone calling the reraise, I would fold anything besides AA/KK and I maybe would even fold KK if I knew the players were really tight. Remember, hand values are relative, so always think about what the other guy has and guess if you have the better starting hand than him before going in.

Hands to raise with, non-raised flop: Paired cards, A10+, KQ,KJ, QJ, J10s

Hands to call a raise with: high paired cards, AQ, AK, AJ(maybe), KQ

Hands to reraise a raise: This depends on the raiser. Reriase a maniac with any pair or A9+ because you'll probably be winning at the flop. Otherwise, reriase with made hands like JJ, QQ, KK, AA (although you may want to smooth call with JJ)

Hands to call and hope to build a pot with (early position) high suited connectors (i.e. 910s)

Flop Tips and Tricks

When you have a made hand, bet it. If flop is AK5, bet with your KQ, maybe they'll fold. If one calls, then you have a decision to make, if you think he's drawing, continue to bet at him. If he's the type to call with the second best hand. Maybe check to him to see if he bets (he probably has a pair too, it just matters if it's ace low kicker or king lower kicker or a pocket pair).

When you pair but it's not the top pair, DON'T call a bet. Either raise or fold. Find out where you are on the flop. If you just flat call, that's a total of 5 small bets. If you raise and he comes back firing, you can probably fold and save yourself 3 small bets (unless he's a maniac, in which case just call him to river).

Drawing hands and pot odds: Always know your number of 'outs' i.e. number of cards that will make you a hand that you are pretty sure will win. Number of outs X2 + 2 is the percentage of hitting at the next card. So divide the pot by that number and if the bet is smaller than that, call. So, for example, suppose you are on a flush draw in a 10-20 hand, you have two spades in your hand and there are two on the flop. So there are 9 spades out there. The chances of hitting on turn are about 20%. So if pot is 80 and bet to you is 10, call! When calculating the pot size, it is generally best to remember future bets. For example, even though the pot is 80, if you hit, you'll win 40 more on turn/river bets. So all you really need is a 1/12 chance of hitting.

Deception

General rule of bluffing: It doesn't work until $5-10 or higher.

Semibluffing: this is betting when you don't have a made hand yet, but you can. For example, betting on a flush draw. Example: Flop is A64, you have KQ suited and there are two of your suit on your board. Go ahead and bet. Not only do you have a good chance of hitting, you also can steal the pot. Semibluffing is only effective at higher levels, because at lower levels you are just value betting b/c ppl will call you.

Pure Bluffs: These don't work too well at limit, but they do work at times. At higher levels, if the flop is kinda scary, say AQ9, if the action is passed to you and there aren't many in it, go ahead and bet at it if you had shown strength preflop.

Longhand Limit

This section will give you the basic strategy at winning at longhand, limit holdem (limit holdem with 8 or more players). This section is intended for the beginner, so he or she can win at the lower limits (2-4 or less).

Preflop:

This is where most beginners make mistakes. Simply, they play too many hands. What beginners fail to recognize is that longhand limit holdem is a game of PATIENCE. As sad as it sounds, you literally can just wait to be dealt the quality hands, and just win with those.

So what are the good hands? David Skalansky, a poker expert, groups hands into 8 categories. I'm going to simplify his method a little bit for you. The main difference between my ratings and his ratings is that I don't seperate the suited cards. The only reason I do this is for simplicity. Furthermore, being suited tends to not be a big deal, except for connecting hands and category III hands. Being suited is nice, but it's just a bonus, it doesn't change the actual value of the card that much. On any given board, there is a 5% chance a suited hand will form a flush by the river. So in general, you will win close to 5% more pots with a hand that is suited than unsuited.

Category 1

AA, KK, QQ, JJ, AK

These are the best hands, bar none. You should raise or reraise with them preflop. If you hold AA, you especially want to jam as much money into the pot as possible

Category 2

TT, 99, AQ, QK

These are good hands, but they aren't amazing. You generally need help from the board. Almost always in low limit, you will need to hit a set with TT or 99 to win.

Category 3

AJ, AT, KJ, QJ, 10J

These are good hands. However, be careful playing AJ, AT, KJ as these hands are vulnerable to losing to a higher kicker (i.e. if an ace is on the board, but someone else has AK, you would lose because he has a higher 'kicker'). You should generaly play these hands only if they are suited.

Category 4

88, 77, 66, 109, 98, 87, 76 (only play the connecting cards if they are suited)

These hands are ok, but generally don't win. They need a lot of help from the board.

Category 5

small pocket pairs (i.e. 55, 44, 33, 22)

Category I hands should almost always be played. The only exception if if you hold AK or say JJ and you are positive that someone has KK or AA by the way they are raising (in other words, the person is a very tight player but is acting like a maniac preflop). These hands in general should be raised from any position and you want to get a lot of money in preflop. However, remember, for AK you need to hit an ace or a king. So do not get in a raising war with one person because that person likely has a pocket pair already.

Category II hands should generally be played. These hands do best with less people, so you should raise to knock people out. Do not jam the pot though (i.e. reraise) b/c these hands have little value before you see the board. Do not call 3 bets cold with these hands (if you raise, then someone reraises, call, but do not call if someone raised, then reraised, and then it's your turn.) The reason you do not call 3 bets cold is because you clearly do not have an advantage going into the flop. THE ONE THING TO REMEMBER IN LIMIT HOLDEM IS YOU WANT TO HAVE AN ADVANTAGE GOING INTO THE FLOP. Go ahead and call one raise in late position, unless the raiser was in early position and is a very good player (he probably has you beat with a category I hand).

Category III: Treat these hands with caution. They are easily beat by category I or II hands, so these hands are best played with fewer people in the pot who do not hold category I or II hands. In other words, raise to knock people out, but do not call a raise.

Category IV/V: these hands are very different. You want a large, multiway pot. The reason being is that 95% of the time, these hands are trash. However, 5% of the time, these hands are amazing (i.e. if you hit a straight, flush, or trips). Therefore, you want to be paid of big when you actually hit something with these hands, which is why you want a lot of people in the pot. Example: you hold 67, the board is A58, you call a bet on flop, 9 comes on turn and then you jam the pot. Thus, you want to commit as few chips preflop with these hands as possible while hoping that many people go into the flop. THus, if you are the dealer, and one guy is in with a raise, fold. However, if you are the big blind, and 5 people have called a raise, go ahead and call and see the flop.

Playing Flop

Once you hit the flop, you will be in one of four situations:

1. You will be winning but have a beatable hand. You will have top pair, top kicker for example or an overpair (i.e QQ and the board is JT5). You want to jam the pot and knock people out. Thus, you want someone to bet to you and then to raise if you are in early position. If you are in late position and no one has bet, you must bet to knock people out.

2. You will have a boss hand. More than likely, you will have three of a kind or maybe even a full house on the flop. There is no reason to knock people out because you will probably win (unless you have trips and there's a flush draw out there, then you need to make them pay). In these situations, it's generally best to wait til the turn to really jam the pot, but jam the pot on the flop if you think a scary draw is out there that will beat you.

3. You will have the second best hand. If you follow my preflop strategy, this is unlikely, but it could happen. An example is if you have AQ and KQ4 is on the board. In this case, treat the hand as a drawing hand or simply fold, unless you really believe that you may have the best hand at the moment (this is unlikely in a larger, multiway pot b/c someone is bound to have the K).

4. You will have a drawing hand. An example is if you have two spades in the whole and there are two on the board. For these hands, you must use outs/pot odds. There is a detailed explanation of this in the shorthand section under 'flop tips.'

5. You will have nothing. An example would be if you have 66 and flop is AK7. You clearly are beat, just fold at the first bet.

This is the basic way to win at limit, longhand. There really aren't that many tricky situations you will encounter. Just remember, the larger the number of people, the higher the likelihood that someone has the boss hand that is out there on the board, so be careful of that. Don't get attached to AK if AQQ is on the board b/c someone probably has the queen.

No-Limit Texas Holdem Strategy

No-Limit holdem is game of general strategy, basic tactical skills useful in all forms of poker, and a game of intense psychology.

Let's first talk general strategy. When you enter a No-Limit ring game, you need to know two things before you can really expect to roll in it:

1. Who are my opponents?

2. How many hands go to a showdown?

Your Opponents:

Generally, people speak of four types of players: tight-passive, tight-aggressive, loose-passive, loose-aggressive. The first modifier characterizes the number of hands the person plays while the second describes the player's betting style. I think for No-Limit holdem, loose-aggressive should be divided into two parts: action-seekers and solid players. Let's go through each of these types of players.

Tight-passives: These people do fine in a limit game, but they won't make much in a No-Limit game. The only way these people will win is when they pick off bluffs, otherwise they won't get the value out of their hands that they should. When against these players:

1. Bluff at the flop a lot. Put in a raise preflop and bet at the flop no matter what calls

2. Fold when they represent a hand. If they bet a little, they're probably on a draw. So stick with your hand if you got something. If they bet a lot, they got something good.

3. Take advantage of your control. Don't go wild with your bluffs though. Fold preflop when you have nothing. But raise when you have a good hand and go for the kill at the flop. If you miss the kill, give up. But when you have something, milk him for everything it is worth.

Essentially, you can quickly tame these players into being calling/folding stations. And if he is making money against you while being a calling/folding station, you are doing something seriously wrong. These players are common, and you will certainly play against quite a few.

Loose-passives: They have to hope that people continually bluff into them because these people have they will call frequently with the second best hand. This is a recipe for disaster at No-Limit. You don't see too many of these bad players at No-Limit games because they lose so quickly and run to Limit games.

Maniac loose-aggressive: These guys will buy a fair share of pots, but then will get themselves trapped by another aggressive player and will lose their stacks in one or two hands. What separates these from good loose-aggressives is that they lack discipline. They love the action of No-Limit so much that they get themselves trapped too easily. These players are even more rarer than loose-passives in my experience.

Strong loose-aggressive: These guys seem like they are horrible maniacs, but in reality, they are a very dangerous form of player. These guys will certainly lose a lot of money in pots, but they also will buy a lot of pots and will win huge ones. The way these types of players win is mainly by getting a good read on the opponent and then making a well-timed bet.

My main tactic against these players is to trap them in their own game. I generally try to avoid having the pot escalate too much preflop unless I have aces or kings, and I generally try to not let them buy every pot. In other words, when I put in the raise preflop, I'll still often make a stab at the pot at the flop.

More importantly though, the way I beat these guys is to take them down at one big pot. Since these guys will play a lot of hands, especially short-handed, they'll often play hands that lend themselves to be second best hands. Once I catch them in this situation, I just have to make sure I don't let them go too easily.

Tight-aggressive: this is my style and the style and the strategy that I'll teach. The tight-aggressive's main problems are that he may get chased out of a lot of flops early and that he may be too easily read. If I were to play against a clone of myself, I would hope to trickle him down bit by bit and hope to throw him off balance by doing so.

Knowing the Showdown Percentage

This is a critical concept in No-Limit. Since No-Limit lends itself to bluffing, one can make a lot of money simply by stealing pots. However, this strategy obviously fails if everyone shows you down to the river!

Generally, before I play in a high-stakes game or start really getting hardcore into one, I pay attention to the number of hands going to showdowns. This is really easy to do on the internet because you don't even need to watch the game. You just leave the window open, go eat a snack, go to the bathroom, whatever. Come back twenty minutes later and see what sort of game you are about to dive in.

Tactics

Types of Hands:

The types of hands you play in No-Limit differ than those in Limit. This is because of implied odds. Hands like KQ offsuit go down in value because they cannot withstand much pressure. Even if you hit a K with this type of hand, you still may be losing to a set, two pair, AK, or may lose eventually to a draw. Thus, with big cards, you generally want to take down the pot at the flop. The exception to this is if you think you have someone outkicked (say AK vs KJ with a K on the board), or if you hit the flop hard (like KK3 when you hold AK). In these cases, you generally want to extract money from your opponent bit by bit.

The types of hands that go up in value or ones that you can bet with confidence: pocket pairs and suited connectors (strong draws in general). Pocket pairs do well because they are sneaky and can often withhold pressure. With pocket pairs, you can bet hard if you have a set or an overpair, which are hands that people generally don't expect. Suited connectors go up in value for several reasons. First, if the flop comes weird, you generally will be paid off. For example, if you hold 76, you'll get paid off a lot more if flop is A76 (against an AK) than you would pay off an AK if the flop were A72. Furthermore, you can take down pots and disguise your hand with semi-bluffing. If you hold 76 and the flop comes 45J. People will probably put you on a jack if you bet. They will then either fold or will probably call. Thus, you will either take down the pot at the flop or will be drawing to a hand that people don't expect. If the next two cards are 8 and A and youre opponent holds AJ, expect a huge reward.

Betting

Many novice No-Limit players simply don't know how much to bet. Well, the concept is simple. You want extract as much money from people who have made hands but are probably losing to you, you want to punish draws, but at the same time you don't want to be trapping yourself.

Example: Suppose you have 99, flop is A89. You are pretty sure he doesn't have 10J.

You want to put in about pot size bets here. Reason being: He either has a straight draw or pair of aces. If he has a straight, you don't want him to draw on the cheap, and if he has pair of aces, he probably won't let go of them so take as much as you can.

Example: You hold KQ of spades, flop is A95, A5 are of spades.

Bet into this flop. But don't bet too much, just enough to make ppl fold if they don't have an ace but enough to maybe make an AQ just freeze up and call. A 1/3 size pot bet would be good. This way you draw relatively cheaply and can punish if you hit your flush.

Bluff Your Cards

This relates back to the showdown percentage. More showdowns means bluffing works less. If you are in a game with a lot of showdowns (typical of lower limits), cut down on bluffing and punish them when you have the boss hand.

Advanced Shorthand Strategy

This section will provide tips to help you in certain trouble situations in a shorthand-limit game:

1. How to Handle a Small Pocket Pair (7s or less)

Preflop:

Small pocket pairs work best in a large, multiway pot (you're hoping to hit another card of your pair and make trips) or heads up. Therefore, your preflop strategy should reflect this. If you're on the button, one guy has raised and another has folded, your best strategy would be to shut out the blinds and make it heads up. So in this case, reraise. However, if you're the big blind and three other ppl have already called the big blind, it's best to just check and hope to hit a set on the flop.

Note: Don't use the reraise to make it heads up against a very tight player. There's a good chance he has a higher pocket pair, in which case, you're owned. The reraise to make it heads up is useful under the assumption that your opponent just has two high cards.

On the Flop:

If you're in a multiway pot, the answer is simple, fold if you don't hit a set, jam the pot if you do. The only exception is if you hit a weird flop - like 552 or 666 (and you hold like 77), in which case, you probably hold the best hand and should jam the pot.

If you're heads up, it gets a little tricker. If the flop is mainly low cards, bet at it, he probably has nothing. However, if the flop is AJQ, you're probably toast. You can go ahead and bet at it (in case he has a low pocket pair too), but if you encounter any resistance, you must fold.

2. Flop Bluffs

Flop bluffs work best against one or maybe two opponents. The method is fairly simple. Suppose you raise it up preflop with KQs, and the flop comes A95, well you have nothing, not even a flush draw, but they may have nothing too. Go ahead and bet at it, you might steal the pot right there.

If they just call you. You have a decision. They may have Ace and a low kicker or they may have like K9. Either case, you're losing. You should generally check and fold. Do this about 80% of the time. However, you don't want them to be able to crack your bluffing strategy by just calling you on the flop and then seeing what you do on the turn. Because of this, I recommend sometimes slowplaying. For example, suppose you have A9 at this flop, I'd bet at flop, then check-raise at turn. In other words, you must punish them for just calling. People should never be allowed to just call with a second best hand if they hope you're bluffing, they should be forced to raise to see where they are. If you suspect that they just call you with the second best hand. You should bet til the river when you have the goods, but now always just bet/check-fold when you don't. You sometimes ( most of the time don't) should bluff on the turn too. And hey, who knows, you may hit and win it anyway.

3. Playing it Slow

I'm not a huge slowplayer because I like to run flop bluffs and flop bluffs are only successful if you actually bet with the goods at the flop. However, sometimes it's best to just wait and jam the pot. I like to slowplay in multiway situations when I really have the goods. For example, If I have AQ and the flop is AQ3, turn is A, I have the stone nuts. I'll generally wait for a bet if I think one will happen and then raise it. In other words, slowplaying and jamming the pot on the turn will often be very profitable in mulitway pots, but I don't recommend it in heads up situations. Often, in heads up, you'll give them a deadly free card and it's not worth losing the pot for one more big bet.

One thing to always remember about slowplaying is that it is successful when you have a super boss hand and you want to let them develop a hand that is good but not good enough to beat yours. Slowplaying a set when a flush draw is on board is dumb, because you are allowing the to develop a hand that can beat yours. You have to think 'what can they develop that won't beat me but will still make them bet so I can raise them.' Don't slowplay if you just have a good hand, slowplay if you have the boss hand but it won't be paid of unless something develops on the board that won't beat you but will cause people to think they can beat you.