| At whatever level you play there are some fundamental strategies that will help you win money over the long haul. Holdem is a more complex game than it first appears when you take it up. |
| » BEGINNER NO LIMIT HOLDEM TIPS - OK. so you are relatively new to poker and would like to learn how to become a profitable player. Follow the advice here and you will be well on your way with our beginner no limit holdem tips. |
| » INTERMEDIATE NO LIMIT HOLDEM TIPS - These tips are designed for people who have a good understanding of the mechanics of poker, they are aware of positional importance, knowing the players, being in the right frame of mind etc but they are looking for another edge. Read the beginners section to read all the fundamentals or Read on. |
| » ADVANCED NO LIMITHOLDEM TIPS - This section is for people who are already strong players and have a good understanding of odds, position and other standard NL concepts. If you would like to recap on these subjects and more please read our beginner and intermediate sections where we discuss the mechanics etc in detail. This section will focus more on the mental side of poker and other similar factors Okay, lets move on... |
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| BEGINNERS TIPS |
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| INTERMEDIATE TIPS |
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| ADVANCED NL HOLDEM TIPS |
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| BEGINNERS TIPS |
| PLAY WITH THEIR MONEY! |
| Ok, this may not be a playing strategy tip but if you are just starting poker there are a lot of sign up offers available that will allow you to effectively play with the poker rooms money. Please see our poker promotions section for more info. |
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| GET IN THE RIGHT FRAME OF MIND TO PLAY |
| Before you start playing holdem poker, compose yourself and think about the challenge ahead. Have a clear mind, don't play fatigued, annoyed or drunk! NL holdem is about making decisions. Every minute you play you will have to make a decision based on a lot of factors which we will cover later on. If you are not in a passive clear frame of mind you are going to make bad decisions and are going to lose money. |
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| PLAY FROM THE RIGHT TABLE POSITION |
| Table position in relation to the button is the single most important factor in nl holdem strategy. If you are sitting on what is known as the dealer button, you will be the last to act after the flop in each round of betting. This is a TREMENDOUS advantage as you will have seen the betting of players in front of you and will be able to make a more informed decision about your hand. If no one bets you may also make a lot of "position bluffs". Doyle Brunson, the worlds greatest player in many opinions has said that if he could sit on the button every hand he could beat a table of players without having to see his cards! |
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| LATE POSITON |
| So. the button is the goal and optimal position on the table and then each seat position right of the button as you sit is progressively worse from a positional point of view. Good holdem players will win most of their money from the button and the three seats to the right of it. This is known as late position. In this position you can play hands such as suited connectors (87s, 98s 67s), Q10, JQ, 10J, and all small pairs assuming there has been no raise preflop. This is because there are not many players who can raise after you have called here and if you hit your hand you are in the right spot to win a big pot for a cheap entry. |
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| MIDDLE POSITION |
| Middle position is what it says, the seats in between the dealer button and the blinds. This can still be a profitable place to play from but you have to be a bit careful. There are still always going to be a few players left to act after you who may have you beat. The type of hands you can play in these seats are KQ,AJ,KJ, middle pairs and all premium cards such as AA,KK,AK etc. |
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| EARLY POSITON |
| Early position is where you are seated in the blinds or in the two seats to the right of the blinds. You are going to be one of the first people to act in each round of betting. BE CAREFULL!!!!! In these seats you are at the mercy of the table. People behind you can trap you, raise you and generally make your game pretty miserable if they are skilful! Therefore ONLY PLAY PREMIUM HANDS FROM EARLY POSITION! AA,KK, QQ , AK ,AQs are really the only hands you should play in tight holdem games. This is because they are the only hands that can call a raise from someone in better position. |
| So, I hope we have demonstrated the importance of table position and if you take nothing else from these articles, please adhere to this section! |
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| ON THE LOWER LIMITS MAKE SURE YOU HAVE A HAND!! |
| Lower limit tables of nl holdem up to $1-2, there will be a lot of beginner players. Beginners have tendencies to over value their hands and end up calling where they shouldn't. Therefore they are harder to bluff. If you play a straightforward, positional game you will make money. Leve the frills for the higher tables as they may be lost on the newbies. |
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| RAISE OR FOLD, CALLING IS FOR FISH |
| In NL holdem it is normally best to raise or fold as opposed to call. Obviously there are times when calling is fine but raising and folding is what the game is all about. By raising you find out more information about the strength of your opponents hands, you will prevent people from outdrawing you with inferior hands, you may even get tighter opponents to fold better hands than yours and if you have position on your opponents you may get what is known as a free card. |
| Take the scenario below |
| You have 10J of spades the flop comes down 8s 9s 2h. Your opponent bets. You RAISE him. You do not yet have a made hand but you have a good drawing hand. Your opponent calls. The turn card is a 5d meaning you still have nothing. Your opponent checks to you. You now can take a free card and check to make your draw or if you think he is weak make another bet to try to take the pot. You have taken the initiative in the pot and that is what NL holdem is all about. |
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| KNOW YOUR PLAYERS |
| Observe the players at your table. Watch their betting patterns, how long they take to act, know them better than they know themselves. In NL holdem you play your hand according to the player you are playing against and if you know him and his style, you will have an edge. Bully weaker players and be more wary of the maniacs, make sure you have a hand before tangling with them! Pokertracker is great software which tracks every hand you play and shows you statistics for yourself and the players you play with. It takes some seeing to be believed and offers a 30 day free trial. A must have believe us. Click here to try it. |
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| STAY PATIENT! |
| In poker you will have many days where you simply cannot win whatever you do. Your aces will lose against a pair of 2's and your flush will be busted by someone's full house. This is inevitable. It is how you deal with this adversity that will determine your success as a poker player. Everyone has the same bad beats. Do not go on tilt, do not play weaker because you expect to get outdrawn, do not lose focus. Maintain a solid game and keep your concentration high, it will change. For more information on this subject see our section on avoiding tilt and the mental side of poker. |
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| KNOW THE POT ODDS |
| Poker is a mathematical game where odds are heavily involved. Pot odds are the amount of money in the pot divided by the amount of money it will cost you to all. For eample, if there is $50 in the pot and it is $10 for you to call you have pot odds of 5-1. Therefore, if you have flopped a flush draw you have a roughly 4-1 chance of making it next card and the odds are favourable for you to call. You can also add value for the implied odds of the hand. Implied odds implies that when you hit your flush you will get another bet out of your opponent making your odds more favourable. It is the skill of working out the pot odds and the potential gains for making your hand that will make you a better player. |
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| PRACTICE READING THEIR CARDS |
| It is common knowledge that you should try to read your opponents cards and work out what you think he is holding. The best technique for this is to practice doing this. Every hand you take part in or watch, try to put the people on certain cards. You will be amazed at how good you can get at this with practice. |
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| INTERMEDIATE TIPS |
| TAKE KNOWING YOUR OPPONENTS TO A NEW LEVEL |
| For Internet play Pokertracker is a software that will tell you more about your play and your opponents than you will ever know. If you don't own it, try it out here for free for 30 days. It is truly an amazing edge to have and the best way of analysing your play and the play of your opponents. If you do not like this tracking software make sure you get some software to achieve this. |
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| VARY YOUR GAME MORE |
| With all the tracking software available today on the web, peole may have some Internet tells on you by the way you bet certain hands. Make it a policy that in every third session you play and bet your hands differently to what you would consider normal. It is this variation that will keep your opponents guessing. |
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| STUDY YOUR TABLE AND PLAYERS BEFORE YOU CONSIDER PLAYING IT |
| Many people watch their table before playing it. We suggest using pokertracker to tudy players before you play with them. You can go out have a drink and set pokertracker to track the players on certain tables while you are out! This way, when you come up against them they will not know you and you will know them VERY WELL. This is an ideal strategy for when you wish to move up the limits to play with players you have never encountered before. |
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| CUT DOWN ON YOUR CHECK RAISING! |
| If you haven't already done so, we suggest you cut down on the amount of check raising you do. It does have a place but it is nearly always better to come out and bet your hand as it disguises its strength better. If you check raise someone they will automatically put you on a big hand and a re more likely to fold. Think of this.. |
| Someone raises pre flop with AA you call with 10 10 and the flop comes 10 5 2 offsuit you check, he bets and now you raise. What is he thinking now? A good player is thinking "dam my aces may be up against a set". He may be able to fold this if he is good enough. |
| Now with the same hand, you come out and bet 25-50% of the pot into him before he has acted. This is normally the better play. Now ironically, to a better player the fact that you came out betting into the raiser can be seen as weakness. Most players will raise you now with their AA and will have put you on A10 or some sort of draw. |
| I played a hand many years ago and I still remember it. I raised $240 preflop with AA the one caller, the flop came 339 off suit, great flop I thought. To my surprise the caller preflop bet $700 into me before I had a chance to act. Anyway I couldn't see what he could have that was beating me that he would want to come out and bet so we ended up going all in for a big pot. He had 4 threes on the flop and he still bet it from the word go under the gun. He cleaned me out and taught me a valuable lesson. I wasn't then ready to play limits that high! |
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| HAVE PERSPECTIVE ON POKER |
| Poker is a game, not life and death. You will have bad runs where you cannot win no matter how good you are. Do whatever you can to get poker into perspective if you find yourself on one of these bad runs. There are plenty more things to worry about in life. Failure to get the perspective right and ride through the bad beats will be very expensive and very stressful. Stick with your game plan if it is just luck that is beating you but be honest with yourself as to why you are losing. Do not let your play suffer from a bad run of cards. |
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| ADVANCED TIPS |
| KEEPING CONTROL |
| We already know you are a decent player but HONESTLY, how well do you play when the cards are against you? If the answer is "same as ever" you are very special or very dishonest! Bad beats can send even the greatest players on tilt however the VERY best do a better job of controlling it. We never want to see you on tilt so read on. We advise these techniques and strategies to help you. |
If you have a bad beat. Stop for 10 minutes and regain your perspective before returning to the game. |
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