Learn Texas Holdem

There are many approaches to starting a foray into the world of fixed-limit Texas hold'em. You may warm up by reading books or playing poker video games. If you train yourself according to expert advice, you may be a little surprised at what you find when you sit down to your first real money live or online poker game. Often at lower limits, players are much looser than you might expect, and more than once you will see someone's big pair like AA or KK lose when someone who has been calling multiple bets spikes two pair with his T8 when a T lands on the river. Playing "correct" poker by waiting for premium hands and betting them strongly can be extremely frustrating when you wait an hour to get a hand, bet it like crazy and lose a big pot to someone who had no business being in it in the first place. However, if you can learn to adjust to the loose game situation, you can make a tidy profit from many of these games, even as a beginner.

Adjusting to Loose Fixed-Limit Hold'em Games: Hand Selection

When you sit down to your first loose fixed-limit hold'em game and see players win huge pots with garbage hands, your first urge might be to fight fire with fire and play all sorts of garbage yourself. If you do this, you are simply nullifying any advantage you may have had playing higher percentage hands. However, you may want to consider loosening up in position. In a traditional fixed-limit hold'em game, suited connectors like 6s7s, which can lead to big wins when played correctly in no-limit, are not that profitable due to the fixed size of the bets. Usually when these hands hit in a limit game you cannot win that much money, so you end up losing more all the times you play them and miss than you win when you hit. In a loose game, however, you are likely to get action when you bet after hitting a hand like this. If you combine the possibility of getting action all the way down with the advantage of playing position and getting to act last, these hands become more profitable to play in limit hold'em.

Adjusting to Loose Fixed-Limit Hold'em Games: Drawing Hands

If you are going to be drawing, you should always be drawing to hands that will be the best if they hit. That is, you shouldn't be playing any two suited cards to try to make a flush, but suited aces are often okay. You also shouldn't be drawing to a straight with three of a suit on board, or to a flush with a paired board. That having been said, once you are in, it is often profitable to draw at your hand because of the pot odds. Remember if the pot is large, it is almost always mathematically correct to draw to a straight or flush for one bet, if that straight or flush will be the winning hand.

Adjusting to Loose Fixed-Limit Hold'em Games: Temperament

Seeing bad players luck into big pots in a limit hold'em game can be extremely frustrating and it will happen frequently. It won't always be the same bad player, but if enough people are seeing enough rivers as often happens in fixed-limit, some pretty bad starting hands are going to win some pots. Do not let this affect your play. Correct play has a much better chance of wining you money over the long term than random, loose play. Stick to your strategy and ride it out until luck favors you.