Basic Texas Hold’em Strategy

You’re all ready to take the world of Texas hold’em by storm, but you’re not quite sure what separates the superstars from the donkeys. Just learning the basics won’t necessarily make you the world champion of poker, but it might. Here is what you need to know about the basic Texas hold’em strategy.

Hand Selection and Texas Hold’em Basic Strategy

A key mistake that many new Texas hold’em players make is playing too many hands. This tendency is not helped by televised poker, where many strong players play an extremely wide variety of hands and win big pots with them. While experienced players can afford to play unusual hands, new players should not. Get in the habit of playing only the top-level hands. At the lower levels, you should find this to be a successful strategy. Once you gain a stronger understanding of post-flop play, you can consider widening your starting hand range.

Position and Texas Hold’em Basic Strategy

Another thing that is important for new players to understand about Texas hold’em is that position is vital. If you act late in the hand, you have more information than your opponents do. You can react, rather than having to act in a vacuum. This can help you determine when you have a better chance of being successful with a bluff, when you are likely to be able to limp in and see a cheap flop, or when trapping will be profitable. The later you are to act in the hand, the more inclined you should be to play, so you can widen up your starting hand requirements significantly in later positions.

Reads and Texas Hold’em Basic Strategy

While it’s nice to be able to pick up tells, what’s really important is for you to be able to determine what an opponent is likely to hold based on how he has acted in the hand. This means his betting pattern as well as any other physical cues. The truth as to whether an opponent is strong or weak will not always jump right out at you, but if you use the information provided throughout the session, you may be able to come to some very accurate conclusions about your opponent’s hand strengths.

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