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STARTING STRATEGY – STAGE ONE
Just like in any new pastime or sport the best start you can
make is by winning. Winning will build your confidence and make
the game more enjoyable.
You will need a lot patience to follow this strategy but you
will be rewarded. In order to see how to win, lets first take a
look at how others make mistakes and why they continually lose.
Poor Starting Hands – why play a poor starting hand when you can
wait less than two minutes for a better one?
Calling Bets instead of Folding – if you've lost admit it and
don't lose any more
Bluffing too much – bluffing can be fun when you get away with
it – thats why people like doing it – but its no fun when you
get caught.
Not paying attention – watching TV, eating dinner, playing two
or more games at once, all give the advantage to your opponents.
Trying to draw great hands – its a great buzz – you think you've
lost and the one card that can save you turns up on the river.
For every hand you win you'll lose many more along the way.
GET AN EDGE
The best time to get an edge in hold'em is at the beginning of
the hand – pre flop.
Its easy you just need to fold, fold and fold. Well not quite
all the time. Far too many players take part in too many hands. Its easy to see why. You are sat there in front of your computer
wanting to win money and you cant win if your not involved in
the hand.
But we aren't gambling like that are we? We want to
win. Not just now and again like these other players do. We want
to make a consistent profit and the way to do this is play very
few losing hands. Anyone can win a hand but it takes a good
player to know when to fold.
Without a doubt the more flops you see the more hands you will
win because you will make good hands from poor starting hands
but the more hands you will lose of course.
You will soon see that it costs you very little to fold in fact
it costs you very little to fold 10 hands in a row. Just a small
blind and a big blind. You could fold another 20 or 30 hands and
you still haven't lost much.
We are here to take advantage of those players who are
consistently over playing their cards and seeing too many flops.
So to start off try just playing premium hands and fold
all others before the flop.
PAIRS
AA KK QQ JJ TT 99 88 77
SUITED
AK AQ
UNSUITED
AK AQ
These are the top hands in hold em and for your first 5 sessions
at least I suggest you only play these hands. Yes its going to
be slow and you wont be involved in the action much but when you
are involved you will have a real good chance of winning.
With these hands you should raise before the flop. Be
aggressive. Raise and re-raise at every chance before the flop.
Once the flop comes you need to take stock of how you stand. If
the flop improves your hand then raise again. If the flop
doesn't improve your hand try one more raise but don't re-raise
or call someone else's raise. If you've been aggressive pre
flop, a raise after the flop might be enough to take the game.
If the flop doesn't improve your hand and you think you are
beaten then get out.
Once you have got used to playing these hands you can then move
on to stage two.
But for now keep practicing stage one and you should see
yourself making a nice little profit out of your sessions.
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Basic Strategy