Texas Hold Em Strategy

May 30th, 2011 -- Posted in Play Poker | No Comments »

Playing poker can be either extremely risky, or a great way to make a living taking money from people that don’t know how to play. As a rule, most players have their own Texas Hold Em strategy, but they usually boil down to two major playing styles.

Playing Tight

One successful Texas Hold Em Strategy is to play tight, which means to only play hands that you know have a high percentage of winning, such as two face cards or a pair of Aces, and fold the rest of the time. The downside to this strategy is that when you play tight and come in to make a bet, then you are signaling to the other players that you have a great hand, and they are likely to back off and let you take a small pot.

To avoid this, one Texas Hold Em strategy play for tight players is to occasionally play a low percentage hand, based on how other players have been playing. This means you have to study the rest of the field to know how often they bluff, call, and fold, learning their “tell” if you can.

Another option, which is the preferred is to just play tight and take a long-term strategy. If you play tight long enough, you’ll run into players that just can’t figure it out, and you can draw them in with slow bets until they’re so far in that they can’t help but to call. When you play this strategy, expect to be patient.

Playing Aggressive

In this Texas Hold Em strategy, a player intends to play every hand, betting according to the percentage they have of winning. In other words, these are skilled players that know the math necessary to calculate the risk of playing each hand, and bet accordingly. This requires a lot of skill not only being able to count and survey the deck quickly, but also in knowing how to read other players to be able to “bluff” well enough to get them to fold without showing your hand. This requires “the nuts” and a good amount of skill to pull off, which is why it’s usually reserved for professional players. These players know that in order to win, you have to keep playing.

The best Texas Hold Em strategy is the one that helps you learn without destroying your bankroll, so in that case the #1 thing you can do is to avoid going and playing on tilt. For rookies, that means don’t blow your cool.