Texas Hold’em Fever

Note that specifically, these tips refer to Texas Holdem poker, but they are also applicable in some other poker games and are directed towards novice and upstanding players.

First of all you must play just good starting hands. Foolishness and loose play are only allowable in home and play money games, where even weak and worthless hands usually see the showdown. Real money Texas Holdem games require you to perfectly know good starting hands, worthy enough to see the flop. Don’t hesitate to fold weak hands. You’ll just waste your money, because even if one weak hand out of a hundred wins the pot, it’s rather an exception than a rule. So, the strong hands to hit the pot with preflop are: a pair of Aces of any suite, a pair of Kings of any suite, a pair of Queens of any suit, Ace and King of any suite, a pair of Jacks of any suite, Ace and Queen of any suite and a pair of 10 of any suite. Worthy hands to call with are Ace and Jack of any suite, King and Queen of any suite, a pair of 9 of any suite, a pair of 8 of any suite, a pair of 7 of any suit, Ace and 7 of the same suite. Keep in mind that these hands are worthy to call just a couple of times. The rest of the hands must be folded preflop. In case if you notice your opponents forcing weak hands to the showdown, then you can easily defeat them by tightening up until hitting a good starting hand. This set of good starting hand refers to Texas Holdem Poker and may vary in other poker games. Read the rest of this entry »

Deception is a very important aspect of both live and online Texas Holdem Poker. By employing deception, a Texas Holdem player induces his opponents to act differently than they’d do if they could see his hand, or make them think that he has a particular hand, while what he has is totally different from what they think he’s got. Basically, deception is divided in two general branches: bluffing and slow play. Slow playing is a deceptive trick, when a player pretends to have a weak hand in order to attract more money into the pot, because if opponents see that a player is weak, they’ll pounce on any show of weakness. Bluffing is a form of deception that is roughly opposite to slow playing: betting strongly with a weak hand than rather betting weakly with a strong one. The opponents won’t call aggressive bets, unless they have very strong hands.