Limit Texas Hold'em

Strategy Poker

Limit Texas Hold'em is easy to learn but difficult to master. Follow the pieces of advice listed below to take your first step toward elevating your poker game.

• Only play good starting hands. Generally you should not see more than 25 percent of the flops.
• Beware of tight and aggressive tables since they usually mean low profit and high volatility. Also, do your best to avoid strong players in general. When selecting a table look for games where at least 30 percent see the flop on average.
• Only call the bet if the pot is big enough to justify the call.
• Analyze the relative strength of your hand.
• Anticipate the holdings of your opponents. Consider the playing styles of your opponents. Pay close attention to how they play the game.
• Bet or raise if you think you have the best hand. It is important to not give away any free cards.
• Vary your game by occasionally limping on raising hands and vice versa. This makes you less predictable in the eyes of your opponents.
• Fold in time. Do not draw when you know that you are beat. This will save you money.
• Bluff infrequently.

Starting Hands

When playing Texas Hold'em it is very important to be selective about what hands to play. Here are five factors to consider when choosing what hands to play:

• Tight/loose table?
• Number of players?
• Players in the pot?
• Has the pot been raised, by whom?
• Your position?

When many players see the flop you should generally play more drawing hands. For example, 87s and small pocket pairs increase in value in multi-way pots. When the pot is big you are getting a better price on a drawing hand.

At a short-handed table (six players or less), big cards increase in value. However, if you are playing in a full ring game, hands like AT, KT can easily become trap hands (second-best hands).

How to Play the Flop

Many players consider the turn to be the most important betting round. However, the defining moment in Texas Hold'em is the flop as you now see 71 percent of your cards. Also, it is often mistakes that you make on the flop that create mistakes on the turn and the river. Therefore, it is essential that you can decide the relative strength of your hand when seeing the flop.

There are ten main flops that you have to master as they all come with different threats and opportunities:

• Three of a kind
• High pair
• Low pair
• Three-suited
• Two-suited
• Three-connected
• Two-connected
• All high cards
• Rainbow with one high card
• Rainbow of all rags

As the flop is the most crucial moment in Texas Hold'em there are naturally some things you need to consider when deciding your course of action on the flop:

• The strength of your hand.
• The number of players seeing the flop.
• Any pre-flop raise? If so, from what position?
• Your pot odds (the size of the pot versus your number of outs).
• Are there any draws on the board?
• Likely hands of your opponents.
• Your position

Trap Hands

A trap hand is a hand that is prone to becoming a second-best hand, costing you money if you see the flop with it. The most common trap hands are AT, AJ, KQ, KJ, KT, QJ, and QT. Beginning and intermediate poker players often make the mistake of playing any two big cards or ace from an early position. For example, if you limp in from an early position with KT and someone in late position raises it you could easily find yourself trapped against common raising hands such as KQs, AK, AJs, AA, and QQ.

Nevertheless, trap hands are playable under the right circumstances. If you are first in from a late position, the trap hand actually becomes a raising hand.

Start with playing limit holdem

If you are new to poker I recommend that you start with playing limit holdem. If you do a mistake when playing limit holdem it will probably only cost you an extra one or two bets, when the same mistake could cost you your entire stack when playing no limit. If you are interested in learning the characteristics of the different types of holdem poker I recommend the site Learn Texas Holdem. There you can read about how the game changes when you change betting structure.