If you are reasonably skilled to play poker online game, Texas Hold’em and plat it at home online, the given below notes about poker strategy may help you fine tune your game since the game of Texas Hold’em can often present exclusive challenges to the skilled player who is used to applying poker strategy in a online poker setting.
So here are the main things losing players do always in the Texas Hold’em game:
Not raising nice hands pre-flop
This is the most ordinary error most new players make in most poker games. But it’s also an ordinary error among game players who never quite understand Texas Hold’em. During the course of a night of poker, it’s often the difference between winning and losing. Bad players simply don’t know how to play their nice cards. And they allow too many people into the pot pre-flop thereby decreasing the value of their nice hands. They make this error over and over again, even with their high pairs.
Overplaying/underplaying top pair
The mediocre skill simply doesn’t recognize when they’re beat and cannot get away from top pair. Sometimes they combine that with the previous problem after the flop and allow players who are drawing to continue on in the hand because they don’t bet enough. Bottom line is that if you hit top pair, make a bet, and somebody re-raises you, you can’t push all-in. Particularly in game poker where more players are in the hand than normal, most of the time somebody has hit something.
Chasing draws
Players at the game almost always play suited cards or linked cards and simply cannot get away from open-ended straight draws and flush draws. The worst approach to this style of play is calling large bets that diminish your chips. The right way to approach draws is to see cards for cheap, if possible, or use your draw to make a large bet that forces everyone else out of the pot. Players who draw need to have control of the pot. If they do not, they end up losing a lot of chips.
Assuming other players have best possible hand
Otherwise known as “monsters under the bed”. This usually comes from low-skilled players not bothering to think about reading other players. As most of the time the other player does not have the best possible hand. In fact, in the game, it’s a frequent occurrence that players have no idea about the strength of the hand they are holding or are bluffing or are just making an error.
Small bet-sizing when they are ahead
Because mediocre players by definition have a hard time reading the board and their opponents, they often don’t realize when they’re ahead. The worst example of this offense is when the offender is last to bet after the flop and everybody checks and the offender puts in a non-threatening amount even though he’s hit top pair with a nice kicker or two pair or whatever. Then everybody calls and inevitably somebody hits something or ends up on a draw that hits.
Over betting the nuts
It is frustrating to watch somebody who loses a lot hit the nuts on the flop or very damn near it, then go all-in, thus driving everyone else out of the pot and winning nothing. Bad players get so excited about having nice cards that they just can’t help themselves, but when you hit a hand that other players have extremely long odds to beat, you don’t drive them out of the hand; you want them to hit something so they hang around and build the pot. If you don’t do well with your great hands, you’re not going to do well overall.
Not reading the board
All players are in a hand (known as a “family pot”) and the flop comes down JJ6. If you don’t have a J in this situation, you fold unless you’re drawing to a flush and nobody bets. It’s amazing though, how many players will bet their 6 in this situation because nobody bets. Um, do you think somebody with a J is really going to bet much, if at all, in this situation? Probably not! Then there are the vast array of other things like not seeing straight and flush draws or missing the fact that there are four cards to a straight on the board.
Ignoring position on a bad board
The flop comes up A99 and the bad player is first to bet. Because he has an ace, he leads out with a major bet. He doesn’t even think about the fact that five other players have yet to bet. And the odds of one of them having a 9 are great. The player with the 9 either just calls or raises and the player with the ace is either forced to fold or gets sucked out for a few other bets before finally realizing his initial bet was stupid.
Hopefully these observations will allow you to improve your poker strategy. Happy playing!