Case Study Discussion Texas Holdem

A No Limit Texas Holdem Study Hand

A hand I played on a recent trip to a local poker room makes a good case study, so I decided to share it with you. The reason it is good for a study example is it involves numerous important, yet subtle, points that all good players understand, but many beginning and losing players never think about.

Flash Game Poker has a number of Poker Games to practice your Poker skills. Texas Holdem, No Limit or Limit and other variations.

I was playing at a $200 buy-in no limit Texas holdem ring game with a full table of ten, and was in early position. I was dealt A Q suited, raised to $15 total and was called by a player in middle position and one of the blinds. We were all deep stacked, having over $200 each when we started the hand. With the flop came Queen high, giving me top pair with top kicker, but it had two Clubs, which weren’t my suit. The blind checked, I bet $30, and the middle position player raised to $60, the blind folded and I called.

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In hindsight, this was a very weak call on my part. This was a raise or fold situation that I misplayed. Fortunately, as you will see shortly, it worked out for the best, but I was lucky my opponent didn’t complete his hand.

The turn was a blank and I checked. My opponent bet $50 and I raised to $100. My plan was to either win the pot right here or fold if he pushed all in. He made a flat call, which was a very telling action. At this point I was around 90% sure he was drawing to the nut flush, and I used this to my advantage on the river.

Texas Holdem Practice

The river brought another blank, so he missed his flush draw if that was what he was on. I looked over at him and said, “Well, you sure have me confused. Did you hit a set or something and have been milking me? I check.” He quickly fired $70 into the pot and I called. As soon as I called he mucked his hand and I turned over my A Q and won a big pot with top pair.

Now, looking back on the hand, I didn’t play it perfectly and if I had been 100% sure about the flush draw I would have raised the river. Though to be honest I didn’t have enough behind at that point to make much of a difference. There is one more very important fact that I haven’t shared with you yet that came into play during this hand.

He had shown a nice bluff right after I sat down at the table so I knew he was capable of bluffing, and I also knew he was a decent player. He had also seen me lay down a couple hands in tight spots. These two things lead me to believe that he would bluff on the river if he missed his flush.

The pivotal play in the entire hand was when he just called my check-raise on the turn. This action screamed that he was drawing to me. Now you must understand that a very advanced player is capable of playing this way with a monster hand, but it is a rare sight at a $200 buy-in table.

Here is what you need to learn from this hand.

If I hadn’t been paying attention to my opponents play earlier in the evening, there is no way I could have known how he would probably play the river.
Betting patterns are a key ingredient to understand in any form of poker. You need to understand what the flat call on the turn meant above and recognize things like this.
You can talk to an opponent and use it to your advantage, however you need to be very careful that you don’t give anything away.

Image credit - Danny Maxwell
Whether you're playing with friends or at an online site, the goal of poker is to win. Of course, this is easier said than done today when you consider that there's a wealth of poker strategy available today. But that certainly doesn't mean your case for becoming a successful player is hopeless. This is especially the case if you read the following step-by-step guide on how to win at Texas Holdem poker.

Basic Texas Holdem Poker Strategy

It's worth stressing that, above all, you need a solid grasp of basic strategy. But what exactly does this encompass? A great place to begin is with a starting hand chart. The single biggest mistake by beginners is trying to play too many hands; starting hand charts quickly break you of this by serving as a guideline for which cards to play preflop. When you gain more experience with no limit holdem strategy, you can branch out and play more hands based on the table dynamic.

The next step is to gain an understanding of simple poker math concepts.'Pot odds' is among the most-basic and helpful because this helps determine whether or not you should make a call post-flop. For instance, you and a single opponent see the flop and the pot is worth $10; your opponent bets $5 and you are now left deciding whether it's worth risking $5 to win a pot that's worth $15 (including opponent's bet). This makes your pot odds 15:5, or 3:1, meaning you need better than a 3:1 chance of hitting your drawing hand to make this a profitable call.

Case Study Discussion Texas Holdem Board

Pot odds are only the tip of the iceberg, and you should continue adding implied odds, reverse implied odds, equity, bet sizing and more to your knowledge arsenal. Other concepts that you want to master as a beginner include limiting your bluffing, knowing table position and bankroll management.

Study Opponents and Focus

Image Credit - Yanning Van De Wouwer

One of the first struggles that you'll incur when trying to learn how to win at Texas Holdem involves paying attention to the game. Unless you're starting out with a fast-fold variant, which we don't recommend, you'll find that poker is a really slow-moving game. So you might be tempted to multi-task while playing or even try playing more than one online table at once (multi-tabling).

But we highly discourage doing anything like this right away because you should be 100% focused on your opponents and trying to figure out what cards they're playing. Specifically, you want to think about what their 'range' of hands is based on their previous actions. This is only something that can be gained by watching your opponents during every hand—including the ones you're not involved in.

The goal is to build a profile of everybody at the table so you can figure out what range they play in each situation. For example, if you see another player get caught trying to steal blinds with 6-5 unsuited in late position, you know that they have a wide range in these situations, allowing you to call against them with more hands.

Keep in mind that it's tougher to read opponents as you move up in stakes. So it's nice to hone these skills, along with your overall no limit holdem strategy, in the micro stakes before moving up in limits.

How to be Good at Poker - Intermediate Tips

Whether you want to know how to win a poker tournament or master Omaha poker strategy, there's always a deeper level to take your knowledge. So once you've spent enough time grinding and studying poker tips, it's time to take your game further.

Some of the intermediate concepts that you want to study include value betting, continuation betting, 3-betting and creating your table image. Learning all these Texas holdem tips won't guarantee that you become a pro; however, intermediate strategy does at least serve as a bridge between starting out and becoming a long-term winning player.

For example, profiling your opponent and putting them on a range of hands falls in line with basic poker strategy. But understanding their raise range and knowing when to 3-bet takes things to another level. Part of learning concepts like these is gaining experience against a wide range of opponents at specific stakes. But it also pays to continue using a variety of tools for improving your poker skills, which we'll discuss next.

Tools for learning Poker Strategy

Image credit - Raed Photography

The quest for learning how to be good at poker never ends—and that's what is so great about the game. By continually improving and picking up new poker tips, you stand a better chance of winning money. And what's nice is that you have a large variety of options when it comes to poker strategy. Here's a brief rundown on some different tools that you can use:

Case Study Discussion Texas Holdem And Win

Poker Articles - Abundant, and very good for learning the basics of how to win at poker. It's especially nice when articles are categorized in beginner, intermediate and advanced sections.
Poker Books - These are a good way to get inside the head of a pro and see how they think when playing the game. Just be sure that the concepts are relevant and not outdated, though.
Training Videos - There was an explosion of training videos in the late 2000s, as players moved away from books/articles and craved visual strategy. The great thing about training videos is that you get to see players actually playing online poker as they discuss different topics. But beware that not everybody who does training videos is a long-term winner.
Live Streaming (Twitch) - This has become one of the most-popular ways to learn poker tips because you get to watch skilled pros in real-time. Plus, you might also be entertained by some of the better Twitch performers. Jason Somerville,Bertrand Grospellier and Jaime Staples have become stars through live streaming.
Coaching - You can get one-on-one training by hiring a coach. The quality of coaching you get often depends on whom you hire and how much money you spend. But this option is worth pursuing if you want a good player to critique your play and explain what you need to do to get better.
Heads-Up Displays (HUDs) - These are tools that help keep track of various stats on opponents and your own play during a session. Some online poker sites have banned these tools while others still allow you to use HUDs since they aren't technically cheating.

Texas Holdem Rules

As you can see, there are lots of different ways to get better at poker. The main thing that you need to do is dedicate enough time to the matter and take advantage of all these methods so that you have a strong chance of learning how to win at Texas Holdem poker.