Hold Em Tips

I've been playing poker for years, and hold em since it became popular on television. Here is a collection of hold em tips I've put together over the years.

The greatest edge a poker player can gain on their opponent is being unpredictable. If an opponent knows you only raise with pocket aces or pocket kings they can manage to avoid you when you're holding a great hand. Raise with a variety of hands and change up your betting patterns. This isn't to say that you should start raising from early position with a hand like seven two offsuit, but you should have a variety of ways you play hands to throw off opponents from getting easy reads on you.

Players love to get excited when they see a hand like pocket kings, ace king suited, or any of the other top starting hands, but tend to lose excitement when they see suited connectors, one card gap, or two card gap cards. While these aren't the greatest for drawing to a flush on (especially at a full table when one or more of your opponents may be drawing to the same flush with something like Ace 2 suited or King 3 suited) the possibility of winning the hand with two pair, three of a kind, a straight or even a full house are high. Even a pair can take down the pot for you in certain situations, depending on how the table plays.

The top starting hands are also the hands you'll tend to lose with the most if you're playing online poker at a very loose table. Players love to call with what I would consider to be strange hands such as Queen Seven suited, which isn't exactly that powerful, yet can crush your pocket rockets with a two pair that the majority of the planet wouldn't be too worried about. The top hands are much better in tight games where players are playing the game according to what has been written. Loose players are very unpredictable and tend to take risks that a lot of players don't keep their eyes out for.

As poker continues to grow, the chance of a loose player being at your table increases. If you're holding something like rockets it's best to make such a large raise pre-flop that no sane player would dare to call against you. Why? Because you don't want the weird hands coming in against you. If they do come in against you, at least you know you made the correct play and they got lucky. In the long run you'll win more than you lose.

Also, don't allow your chip stack to dwindle. If you finally pick up your rockets or kings and you don't really have enough to scare anyone out of the pot, you'll be up against quite a few hands. The more hands in the pot, the higher the likelihood that you're great hand will be cracked. Those top hands the pros and every poker website talk about are only good heads up or with a total of 3 players including you in the hand. When more players enter, your chances of winning go down. Do you know what hand has the best chance of beating pocket aces heads up? It's 65 suited believe it or not. You don't want people limping in with hands like this as they can take your chips.

Please continue reading for our hold em tips on table selection.

One of the most important hold em tips you can learn is table selection. In brick and mortar poker rooms the option to choose a table is limited to what tables and what limits are available. You don't really have the option to scope which table you'd like to play at. Online poker, however, gives you all sorts of information about the table before you even sit down. You know how many players are sitting at the table, how many hands per hour are being played, how many players see the flop, and the average pot size. You can use the pot size to determine if there are a lot of chips flying and the number of players seeing the flop identifies if the table is loose or tight. A tight table will have less players seeing the flop whereas a loose table will have a lot more players taking flops. The average pot size tells you approximately how many raises are made by the river, as well as how many players are contributing to said pot. If the pot size is low you know there isn't much betting going on. If the pot sizes are high then you know either players love the bet pot button, get into big confrontations with eachother over kickers, or there's a lot of players going after draws (straights, flushes, two pairs, trips) and aren't too worried about pot odds.

Keeping track of the pot odds and number of outs you have available is essential to your online survival. If you chase a lot of hands your stack will reflect this. You may win a little in the short run but over the long run your wallet (and your spouse) will be yelling at you.

Depending on how you like to play will help you determine which table you would like to sit at. If you like to take flops it may be better to sit at a table with lower pot sizes and more players seeing flops. Keep in mind that aggressive players look for the smaller pots and less players seeing the flop as well to steal blinds or force players into calling larger flops pre-flop.

You can always stand up and join another table if you don't like the way the game is going! This may sound like a no brainer but you'd be amazed how often this tip is ignored. Tournaments force you to stay at the same table until you're either moved or go broke. Cash games you can get up whenever you want and join another table if things aren't going well for you.

Learn what time of day you play best at as well. Certain times of day may bring in more aggressive players, tighter players, etc. If you can identify the best time of day to play your chip stack will thank you.

Don't forget to check out Free Texas Hold Em Secrets for more hold em tips.