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Texas Holdem Tips on taking your poker game to the next level

So you’ve got the basics down. You can accurately compute poker pot odds without losing sight of that attractive waitress, rattle off the poker starting hands for each position if you were quizzed by your biology professor, and you even know the poker lingo so you don’t lose cool points for asking what a bad beat is.

Now you’re trying to take your Texas holdem game to the next level.

I believe that the best Texas Holdem tips I have to offer the player trying to take their game to the next level are:

Be open minded.
Be aggressive.
Don’t get trapped in the concept of a hand.
Money management

The number one tip for Texas Holdem: Be open minded

For months I thought that two my friends played too loose and overly aggressive. I thought they put too many chips into pots with raises and bets. The old guys I learned from didn’t play this way. Many of these guys played for a living at one time and their strategy said “wait until you have a strong hand and ram it into them”. They advised caution. One old school Texas Holdem tip was “don’t put in a bet if you can’t call a raise.” These old guys must know, right? Wrong.

Actually it wasn’t wrong, what they were teaching me was appropriate for the game I was in. The game they were teaching me was a loose, passive $4 - 8 Texas holdem game. Typically there were 5 - 6 players per pot. In this game bluffing was not necessary since everybody called everything. You needed to wait and play solid hands and get the most bets in the pot when you had the best.

This mentality was wrong for a high stakes poker game. As the limit goes up the action is usually heads up or 3-way most of the time. Frequently the players become quite a bit tighter thus playing less hands. In order to be successful in a game like this you need to steal and bet more often. In short handed Texas Holdem often no one will flop a hand and you need to take down those small pots.

I have yet to sit in a game with a player better than my Dad. However, there were some poker tips which I didn’t learn from him because we always played in the same loose, passive game. Thus, it took me longer than it should have to become a tough player in high stakes Texas Holdem. Strangely enough, if I had accepted a poker lesson or two from my friends I would’ve tasted success much earlier.

This is why a key tip in Texas Holdem is to stay open minded. Consider the poker game you sit in now and the players within, even the ones that you don’t think are very good. Are there elements of their games which give you trouble? Identifying these elements and implementing them into your own game is key to growing as a player.

Being Aggressive in Texas Holdem is a key tip:

“Have you ever thought about how hard it is to flop a pair in this game?” – anonymous

Quite often in short handed pots nobody has a hand. These are your opportunities to take down small unglamorous pots which add up. This means being aggressive. That’s a key Texas Holdem tip I can give you, managed aggression.

When you’re calculating poker pot odds, the odds improve in your favor when you factor in the percentage of the time that your opponents will fold plus the percentage of the time you will make the winning hand. Thus, aggression is a key factor in your decision. It’s a consensus amongst poker elite that it’s often correct to raise or fold but not call.

Don’t get trapped in the concept of a hand:

I once saw a professional poker player raise with 9, 10 suited under the gun. Everyone folded to this usually tight player and he showed the hand. The next time he came in with a raise holding wired Queens and got paid off by a player who flopped middle pair all the way to the river. The pro was able to control his opponent by pushing him into being “trapped in the concept of a hand”. Because this opponent saw the pro getting a little bit wild and playing unorthodox he immediately began to suspect he was bluffing all the time.

If this was done on a regular basis the player would go broke faster than I drive my Lexus. However, used sparingly in the right situations under the right conditions this can be a valuable move. That day I learned a lesson about mixing it up and not getting trapped in the concept of a hand.

The opposite can be a valuable Texas Holdem tip as well. In one session I was winning everything through sheer luck. I had Aces, Kings, and I’d flop sets all in the course of 2 hours in a casino. They all got tired of paying me off. So, what did I do? Cash out my sugar? Nope, I loosened the game up. I started bluffing, pushing players around and they all folded. Everyone got so tired of me always showing them strong hands that I was allowed to dominate the game. They got tired of me beating them and they started to respect my bet, even more than they should have. I left the game up 3 racks and taught them another lesson, don’t get trapped in the concept of a hand.

Money management is a key tip in life and Texas Holdem:

The most important lesson in poker and actually the most important lesson in life is money management. The key is to not blow all your sugar when you win. You’ve got to be prepared for when you run bad.

As I grow older I increasingly see this become a factor. I see very capable players that make a bit hit and immediately go out and buy fancy things they wouldn’t buy if they were just on a normal winning pace. Don’t get me wrong, I am a total consumer. I burn through my chips on a normal bachelor style pace including liquor, great food, stylish clothes, etc. but I always keep my bankroll adequate. I need to be able to sustain those losing streaks which do happen. Those capable players who keep themselves barely afloat, I see them having to go back to normal jobs because they have to survive. That’s not a serious poker player in my mind.

Don’t go broke playing poker, my final and obvious piece of advice for Texas Holdem. This means playing in a limit where you can sustain a few losses. Not sure how big of a bankroll you need? The different limits are all relative and can be compared to whatever limit you are playing in now. If you’re used to playing $4 - 8 and feel comfortable with a $400 bankroll (4 racks of 100 chips in $1 increments) and now you’re considering playing $10 - 20 but you're not sure how much money you need to be comfortable with consider the following. In essence, you’re playing 1 - 2 with 10 dollar chips. Since you're now playing 1 - 2 instead of 4 - 8 you should probably feel ok with 2 racks of 100 chips in $10 increments rather than 4 racks of 100 chips in $1 increments. So 200 chips in $10 increments will make you feel as comfortable as when you played in your lower limit. That's $2,000 to feel just as comfortable playing $102- as when you have $400 in your $4-8 Texas Holdem game. I do this today when I play $30-60. It’s like 3-6 with $10 chips

Would you like to read about more tips for Texas Holdem? This article has a specific focus on the differences between high and low limit poker.

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