Jul
14

Top 30 Tips to Improve Your Rankings in Texas Hold’em

  1. If your hand is not good enough to bet with then it certainly is not good enough to call a bet with
  2. Following the best playing strategy you will only play around 1 in 10 hands approximately so don’t think you can play 50% of the hands dealt to you and expect to win at this game.
  3. Hands like unsuited JQ, KJ, A10 will just cost you money in the long run and should seldom be played unless you are trying to steal the antes by raising and no body has called yet
  4. Hands with one high card and one medium or low card are extremely week (even if they are suited) and should only be played if you want to donate money to the pot
  5. Players on the internet are very hard to bluff so avoid this strategy
  6. Wait for good hands and play aggressive when you hit the flop
  7. If you miss the flop do not see the turn card unless the pot is very large and you have the nut straight or flush draw
  8. In an aggressive game (lots of raising) you must avoid small cards and connectors unless you have late position and there are already many people in the pot
  9. Do not play small pairs (under 8’s) unless there are at least 4 people already in the pot.
  10. Do not raise with pocket pairs under JJ since you are really hoping for lots of players and to hit trips on the flop
  11. Most money in Hold’em is earned by saving bets on weak hands (not calling a draw hand or playing weak cards before the flop). When you first start playing you will want to be in every hand but realize a hand only take one minute on the internet so you will have new cards soon so don’t play for the sake of playing
  12. If a low limit game the average winning hand is usually two pairs so be careful if your hand is weaker than this
  13. Most money is lost from early position play and most money is made from late position play. You need to have very strong hands in early position play to compensate for betting first each round
  14. Start taking notes on players who call too many hands or who are overly aggressive with marginal hands
  15. If you are new to the game play more conservative than what your initial instinct tells you to do

Early Position Play (seats 1 to 4 after dealer):

  1. In early position before the flop raise with hands AA, KK, QQ, JJ, AK, and AQ

  2. Do not call a raised hand with less then AQ ever

  3. Just call with pocket 10’s , pocket 9’s and pocket 8’s but fold all lower pairs (even for one bet)

  4. Call a single bet (no raise) with AJ, KQ suited, and A10 suited

  5. All other cards are almost always unplayable even for one bet from early position

  6. You can raise with pocket JJ’s or higher since that is a strong enough hand that it may win without trips

Middle Position Play (seat 5 to 8 after dealer):

  1. Call and raise with same hands you would in early position and you can now call with a few more
  2. Call a single bet with hands 77, 88, 99, KQ, KJ suited, JQ suited, JT suited and nothing worse than this
  3. Do not call two bets (a raise) unless you have one of the top 5 premium hands (AA, KK, QQ, JJ, AK) and then consider re-raising to drive other players out
  4. Do not play hands like 9,10 or 8,9 or 7,8 etc…in middle position
  5. Hands such as ACE + any card of same suited are best left for late position calls with no raise

Late Position Play (seats 9 to 10 where seat 10 is the dealer):

  1. Call or raise with any hands you would in early and middle position and now you can play even more hands
  2. In late position call a single bet with draw hands such as 5,6 s, 7,8s, and 9,8s ONLY if there are 5 or more people already in the pot (3 callers including blinds would mean 5 callers)
  3. Call a single bet with any pocket pairs. Low pairs are very weak hands unless you hit trips on the flop so you are hoping for lots of players and to get in cheap
  4. In late position raise with AA, KK, QQ, JJ, AK and AQ. Re-raise a raiser (making it 3 bets) with AA, KK, QQ
  5. If there are no other callers and its your turn to act you can raise with weaker cards such as KJ, QT, and AXs

Back to strategy main page

top