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Beginners' Low Limit Poker Strategy Guide Page 2

With any other sport, and some people do call poker a sport believe it or not, you learn through trial and error.  Miss the hoop in basketball?  Then aim higher/lower next time.  Put more/less velocity on the ball.  You learn to adapt and change your play based on current observations.  This doesn’t work with poker.  Poor players are rewarded in the short run, and good players will sometimes hit bad runs of cards for 10k hands, 25k hands, or even more.  At times there’s almost no discernable correlation between current play, and your immediate results.  To play winning poker you need to look past the short term and focus on the long run.  Even though while making technically correct plays you might lose a big pot, you need to program your brain to realize that although you lost this one pot, over the long run you will win more often than you lose.  You have to teach yourself not to care too much about how well you’re doing in one session of poker, or over a week, or even a month.  You need to learn to play smart, solid poker, and trust that by making correct choices more often that poor ones, you will be a winner in the long run.

When I first started playing poker seriously, one of the hardest things I had to deal with was learning when to lay down a hand.  If I had top pair with a strong kicker, I’d bet that thing to the river, no matter how many times I got raised and re-raised.  Now I know better.  One of the best pieces of advice I can offer is to pay attention and learn to know when you’re beat.  Think about why people are betting into you, what position they’re in, and what possible hands might they hold.  Always pay attention to what’s on the board.  ALWAYS speculate as to what hands other players might have, or be drawing to.  Some people will play pocket kings like someone has cast a spell on them, or glued the cards to their fingers.  They’re holding KK and even with 4 hearts on the board, and 5 opponents raising and re-raising each other like a bunch of raising fools, you’d have to cut that player's hand off to get him to drop those Kings.  Sometimes you will have to fold KK’s, and believe it or not, AA’s as well!  You might hold Q9 with Q54 on the board, but the guy across the table who’s betting into you could have flopped two pair or a set.  Sure he might be a maniac with money to blow, but if you’re paying attention to the table, you’ll know if he’s a rock, or loose.  If the rock across the table just re-raised your top pair on the turn after folding every hand he’s been dealt over the last hour, then get out!  Just fold it.  Learn to know when you’re beat.  It’s far less costly to fold your hand on the flop then on the river.  Because if you’ve made it to the river, you’re usually going to pay one more bet anyways.    

Some of the concepts I’m going to explain are somewhat difficult to understand, but believe me it’s worth the effort.  I will try not to overload you with information, but rather attempt to give you a basic understanding of the mechanics behind limit Texas Hold’em, and how percentage players think.  Again, further study and reading is strongly advised once you understand the basic strategy. 

The first thing I want you to understand is that although your pair of tens might look nifty, they’re worth next to nothing if the board is AKJ with several aggressive opponents in the hand.  You’re holding an underpair.  Don’t even consider it, just toss it away.  Often beginners will play any pair, regardless of what’s on the board.  For now I want you to only play top pair or better if you’re looking at a made hand.  Don’t play middle pair, lower pair, or underpairs.  Just pretend they don’t even exist.  You’re only going to play top pair or better.  And if you have a drawing hand (open ended straight draw, flush draw, etc) you’re going to make sure it’s profitable to draw to that hand.  You will do that by comparing your draw odds to your pot odds, which I will explain in a moment. 

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