Empire Poker Texas Hold'em Tips
You
can bet either when you have a good hand, or when the other
person has a bad hand and would fold down. Betting is not
as simple as that though. It is more of a deceptive play.
A few of the tricks to improve your skill are –
Blind
stealing – is the term given to a raise when
you are the dealer and only you and the blinds are left. This
results in the blinds folding but this trick would make you
a buck at the most and is often used to end the game.
Steal raise – Betting to raise the
pot or limit the players when you are the last to act is known
as steal raise. It should be used only if you have an excellent
drawing hand.
Check raise – This involves checking
your opponent to lure them into betting, with you raising
the bet.
The opener – This involves raising
the hand by the first person to act so that others call two
bets at once. This is used with a small group to limit the
players.
Squeezing – is done when you have a
good hand in a short-handed game only.
Texas
Hold’em works on the principles of probability. Hence,
it is extremely necessary to have the statistical knowledge
to determine what your next should be. The common terms used
are –
Outs
– are the number of cards in the remaining
deck that will improve your hand.
Pot odds – are the odds when you calculate
your current pot size vs. your next call.
Bet odds – are the odds that you get
after analyzing the number of callers to a raise.
Implied odds – are the odds of the
assumed result of betting for the remainder of the hand.
One
thing that should be clarified is that you always take into
consideration all the cards that you don’t currently
have while calculating odds. For example, if you have to pick
the jack of spades from seven remaining cards in the deck
where your opponents has the rest 40 cards in hand, the odds
would be 1/47 instead of 1/7 since you don’t know what
the opponents cards are.
The
house has an advantage over you and rakes in small, unnoticed
amounts from each player. You should follow certain guidelines
to minimize the money loss.
You
can blind steal or buy free cards to exploit tight players.
Blind stealing involves betting when there are only the blinds
left pre-flop. You can try stealing the cost of two blinds
by raising from the small blind. A free card is best used
with drawing hands from the last position. If you bet when
no one else has raised post flop, you tend to reduce the number
of players playing, and the pot, but all players left will
tend to check on you.
You
should have your position in mind and tighten up when playing
with aggressive players. You should fold after flop after
playing the premium starting hands if you didn’t come
up with a good hand. This way you would cover the cost of
the rake if you win just one extra big hand. Aggressive players
won’t succeed as much if the rake is a set percentage
e.g. 5%. It also makes bluffing that many percent less worth
it, and makes all failed blind-stealing attempts to be raked.
You can also ask the rake to be reduced or completely eliminated
in some casinos if the games get short handed.
There
are also a number of factors to be considered in order to
develop a solid pre-flop strategy. The factors that need to
be considered are the number of players at the table, the
aggressiveness or passiveness of the players, your bankroll,
your position, and the risk you are willing to take.
Number
of players – The more the number of players,
the tougher will be the competition since there more chance
of someone else getting a better hand and even at the pre-flop.
Aggressiveness of players – Some players
like to raise every hand pre-flop. It is better that you sit
tight at that moment and take him down on the pocket pre-flop.
The bankroll – The more the amount
of money you are left with, the greater the risk you can take
without worrying about closing the game.
The position – Your position in the
game matters a lot as later players have greater influence
over the pot.
Willingness to take risk – You might
try to win pre-flop or lose pre-flop and try for the big pot.
The
position at the table has a great impact on the player and
it is basically the position of the player with respect to
the dealer. The dealer can see the reaction of each player
before they make their move and hence he is at maximum advantage.
He can raise the pot to potentially double it and the others
can then easily commit to the following bets.
The
small blind is the person at the left of the dealer and has
to act after the flop. The big blind is the person to the
left of the small blind and is also obligated to the game.
The person who is known as being under the gun is the one
to the left of the big blind who moves first before the cards
are dealt. If he bets and the next person raises resulting
in the other folding up, he is obliged to play and probably
lose since the other hand has already seen his cards. The
later positions are at an advantage to play the gambling or
weaker hands without fear of financial loss.
Who
you play with and what is your position with respect to that
player has a positive impact on your pocket money. You should
choose a mid-sized game as it improves the chance of finding
a suitable position for yourself. You should notice and remember
who all bluffed, semi-bluffed, check raised, slow played,
and who is playing tight and who is playing aggressive. You
should also try and avoid games where there is a lot of early
pre and post flop raise going on. You should basically try
to sit on the left of a loose player and to the right of a
tight player. This gives you an advantageous position, the
advantages being –
You
can steal blind from the tight players sitting to your left.
You always analyze your hand after the loose person sitting
on your right makes his or her call.
You can re-raise the bets of the people to your right to wipe
out tough or mediocre competition.
Extremely tight players to your left have a greater chance
of betting and you can scare them by buying free cards.
Since money goes around in the clockwise direction and loose
players have bigger money swings, its better to be on their
right to save you from a loss.
Bluffing
- the big 'B'
Bluffing
has nothing to do with cheating and is a form of deception
used in the game to misguide other players into thinking that
you have a better hand. Since there are a lot of factors to
be considered when bluffing, there are no rules to follow.
Some of the few situations where you can bluff are –
You
can bluff by betting over and over again when there are few
players in the pot and you know that they will fall for it.
There is a less possibility of everyone in larger groups believing
your bluff.
You can bluff very tight players to see whether they fold
up or actually have a winning hand.
You can bluff on the river when weak hands start folding in
to try your luck. This would technically be a semi bluff.
You might bluff if everyone has checked and you are late in
position.
Bluffing when people don’t know you missed when you
bet pre-flop can be really dangerous.
You can bluff by making other players fearful because the
way you would play is be the way you played last time you
won.
BY
APPLYING THESE SKILLS IN COMBINATION WITH THE STARTING HAND
STRATEGY CHART, YOU WILL BE ON YOUR WAY TO WINNING AT EMPIRE
POKER TEXAS HOLD 'EM !
