Texas Holdem Poker Hands

Calling in No Limit Holdem when the opponent doesn’t have enough chips to pay you off. Both in all-in situations and hands that will see the flop, turn and river, to play hands that are behind, the opponent needs enough chips to make it worth your while. Say you have a hand like QJ. For that hand to make money against another opponent you need to hit the flop and get paid off or get him to fold. If he doesn’t have enough chips to justify the implied odds, you’ll lose money in the long run, say if he has a hand like A4.

Not calling in gamble situations to bust pros. If a player is better than you, the best thing he can do is keep the pots small. That’s called small pot strategy. His edge is most expressed over a large number of hands. If you face a much better player in tournament play at a final table and he has few chips compared to you, you should look for spots to bust him by putting him all-in. Even if you are behind in card value this is correct. The reason is even a hand where you are 60/40 with him works to your advantage because over one sampling (one hand), it is still close. You have a 40% chance of getting him out of the game. That’s good. You wouldn’t want to extend this to a worse player because it is likely you can beat him more easily being ahead in hands.

Calling when you have a dominated hand. One thing you try to avoid is getting into situations where your hand is dominated. A dominated hand is when your kicker is weaker than your opponents. this is often where most of the money is won and lost in poker.

Posted on Monday, October 3rd, 2011 at 13:45