Learn Texas Holdem

I'm a big fan of training. The main hobbies/interests of mine have always been those that I did day in and day out and slowly progressed at. You do the sport/activity because you love it and years later you look back and realize how far you've come.

Cards are a little different though. While you get better with time, time isn't on your side. If you haven't picked up some skills early on, chances are you'll get busted out and find something else to take up your free time. Playing holdem poker is different than other things that I've given my life to like skateboarding and weight lifting because in poker, everytime you play it is for real. Take weight lifting, the vast majority of the time you just train in the gym or eat, there is nothing at stake. In skating, it is the same, you spend most of your time just practicing and very little time filming or competing. In holdem though, the only way to know how to play a $20/40 holdem game is to play in a $20/40 holdem game.

When I started playing holdem, the lowest game you could find was a $2/4 or $3/6. Now days they have micro limits that smooth out the learning curve some but even with the micro limits, there still is a learning curve because as you progress up the stakes ladder there are big conceptual changes. What use to win before in smaller limits, now isn't enough to win in the large limits. You have to acquire new skills and still hold on to what you learned before. The goal with this page is to add some exercises that can help you improve your game without having to invest a bunch of money doing it. As I think of and find more exercises, I'll list them here.

 

High Ante Short Handed Texas Holdem

Background - knowing odds is essential to playing winning poker but knowing the odds alone won't guarantee you'll win. Poker is more of a game about people. The higher limits you play, the more you'll understand this. Recently, I've been playing more "fun" poker on the weekends with people who don't know how to play -- just friends. After going out, we just sit down and play some cards and have a few more beers. We play holdem, omaha, some stud games, even go fish. I've learned a lot from this. It is fascinating for me to watch them play since they have no knowledge of poker strategy, hand grouping tables, odds, etc. This past weekend I played again and it dawned on me that this would be a great way for new players to build up some fundamentals.

Who this is for - everyone can benefit from this exercise. Whether you are a no limit tourney player and you need more experience at the final table or if you are a low limit holdem player who wants to advance to middle limit and above, this will help you to acquire the tough gritty skills needed.

Lessons Learned - position, aggressiveness, playing the other person's hand

Description - you can play no limit or limit holdem. We want the table to be shorthanded (less than full), ideally play with 4 or 5 people tops. Incorporate an ante preflop along with the blinds. Make the ante fairly large (equal to the small bet). So for example, if we were playing $2/4 holdem, make the ante $2. An ante is a forced bet preflop that everyone has to make before they get their cards. What this does is that it puts so much money in preflop that you have to play more hands. I want you to play almost every hand unless it costs too much (a big raise in no limit, in limit you'll still play even with raises preflop).

What this does is force you out of thinking about hands based on their preflop value and into their post flop value where most of the game is actually played. Also, since there are so few players and such big pots, you'll be forced to play more aggressively. If everyone's skill level is about the same as yours, that is fine. What I want you to do is try to leverage your position against them -- be more aggressive in later positions by betting and raising more. Force them to catch a hand and beat you. Don't check. At the same time I want you to try to put more moves on your opponents by being deceptive and tricky and above all, try to play your opponents hand instead of yours. What do I mean by that?

The point here is that in poker you don't need to have the best hand to win all the time, sometimes all you need to know is what your opponent has and then convince him that you have him beat. If the players at your table are much weaker then you, they don't know how to play as well, then that is also great. This is your time to try and develop and strategy by which you can extract the most money from them in the least amount of time. Once again you want to incorporate your position, aggressiveness (betting and raising) along with thinking about what they have. The goal with this exercise is simply to force you out of your comfort zone and into playing a more deceptive, tricky, tough, aggressive style, even when you don't have great hands.

I guarantee you this will improve your poker skills because the toughest part of the game is playing well when you don't have a lock. Playing this game will be nothing but marginal situations -- bottom pair, top pair crappy kicker, underpair with three overcards on the flop, no pair and only Ace high, broken flush draws, gutshot straight draws, overcards only, etc.