Texas Holdem Poker Beginners Guide

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Most beginning Texas Holdem players bluff too much. They see the pros seemingly bluff all of the time on television and think that it’s the best way to play.

But when they start bluffing at the tables they end up getting called most of the time and losing money. What they don’t know is that on TV they cut out most of the boring hands and that the pros don’t bluff very often.

I always tell beginning holdem players to avoid bluffing as much as possible. You should only consider bluffing when it seems like your opponents aren’t calling your bets when you have a good hand and are betting for value.

A Beginner’s Guide to Playing Texas Hold’em Poker. July 28, 2020 9:17 am Share on facebook. Share Share on twitter. Tweet Share on email. Email There are many different types of poker that you. To be successful you need a beginners poker strategy to play better Texas Holdem poker. This guide will help you to work out how to get better at poker, what hands to play when, and is essential for beginners and useful for intermediate players. Poker strategy for beginners; Position.

But when I give this advice it isn’t meant to include semi bluffs.

A semi bluff is when you bet with a hand that may or may not be the best hand at the time, but has a chance to improve to the best hand.

When you bet or raise it puts pressure on your opponents and forces them to make a decision. Every time an opponent is pressured and is forced to make a decision it creates an opportunity for them to make a mistake.

Every time an opponent makes a mistake it helps you. When you make a semi bluff you can win the hand when your opponents fold or when they call and you end up with the best hand. If you check and call instead of bet and raise the only way you can win the hand is when you show down a hand better than your opponent’s hand.

This combination of aggression, pressure, and forced decision making with a decent hand with a chance to improve is what makes semi bluffing so powerful.

Before I move on I want to make sure you know exactly what a semi bluff is.

Here’s an example:

You see the flop with the king and jack of clubs. The flop has the queen of clubs, ten of spades, and the three of clubs. Four players see the flop and the first one checks to you.

At this point the odds of you having the best hand are small. But you have an open end straight draw, a flush draw, and if a king lands on the turn or river you’ll have top pair. It’s important to realize that if you hit top pair it may give one of your opponents a straight or top pair with a better kicker.

You should bet in this situation every time. It’s a semi bluff, but you have so many draws that even if all of your opponents call you’re in a good position to win a large pot.

Here’s another example:

You raise before the flop with the ace of hearts and the jack of diamonds from late position. The flop has the queen of clubs, jack of spades, and the four of hearts. Your opponents check around to you so you can check for a free card or bet to put pressure on them.

This is another place where you should bet. You may or may not have the best hand with the second pair, but you showed aggression before the flop and if you get called you can improve to a better hand.

Both of these hands show what a semi bluff is and are examples of good places to use one. Continue reading to learn more about when to semi bluff, how to do it, and what to do when you do it and get raised.

When to Semi Bluff

Each Texas holdem game is different. The abilities of your opponents are different, your table image is different, and the most recent hands are different.

All of this means that each situation is unique, so it’s difficult to assign hard and fast rules to when you should semi bluff. But I’m going to give you some tips and general advice to help you learn the best times to do it.

Most semi bluff opportunities come on the flop, but you can find times when one can work on the turn as well.

Here are some of my semi rules for semi bluffing. Remember that none of them are absolute rules because you need to learn how to judge each situation and make the best play.

Semi Rule 1

I tend to semi bluff almost 100% of the time when I raise before the flop and hit any part of the flop. If I think there’s any chance of having the best hand or a chance to improve to the best hand I choose to be aggressive.

Texas Holdem Poker Beginners Guide For Beginners

This is basically the same as a continuation bet, but in some games I check the flop after raising before the fop if I don’t improve. These games are usually against better competition, but even against weak opponents it can be a good play.

This is especially true if they tend to call almost all of your bets on the flop and you don’t want to build the pot further with your current hand.

Semi Rule 2

I also tend to make a semi bluff close to 100% of the time in an un-raised pot if it’s checked to me after the flop and I hit any part of the flop. Even if I may not have the best hand no one seems interested in showing strength and it’s always better to bet first.

If I bet and get raised then I decide the best way to play the rest of the hand. If I’m particularly weak against a god opponent I might fold, but in many cases it’s worth calling a bet to see the turn.

Semi Rule 3

When an opponent raises before the flop and I hit a strong draw on the flop and they bet into me I may make a semi bluff to try to see where I am in the hand. If I raise and get re-raised it’s a strong indication that I’m behind.

But if I raise and just get called it shows weakness from my opponent. You need to be careful in these situations because a really good player may flat call the raise to try t get you to bet on the turn and then make a big move.

I don’t know the actual percentages, but I probably make this play somewhere between 10 and 20% of the time. It depends a great deal on my opponent and what I know about them, and I won’t do it often against a strong player.

A weak player is much more likely to make a weak call here, so I may try to take advantage of them, especially if I think I can make an all in move later in the hand to bluff them off their hand. This really isn’t a beginner play so use extra caution in this situation.

Semi Rule 4

If many people see the flop without a raise and I have position and the flop is checked to me I usually make a semi bluff. Never do this when you miss the flop and don’t have good position.

You can use a strong position to win a hand where no one hits a good hand or strong draw on the flop. But if the game is filled with calling stations this isn’t a good play. Believe it or not, this play works best when you’re facing better players.

But if they figure out you do this too often they’ll start calling or raising when you do it and it costs you money.

Semi Rule 5

On the turn it’s more difficult to get some players to fold, but if it looks like your opponent is on a flush draw and misses on the turn you can make an over sized bet to make the pot odds wrong for the to see the river.

Weak players tend to call to see the river no matter what, so try to only make this play when there’s a good chance your opponent will fold.

How to Semi Bluff

When you make a semi bluff the size of your bet is important. If you’re playing limit Texas holdem you can’t control the size of your bet, but in no limit play you can size your bet for maximum pressure and advantage.

It’s not a hard and fast rule, but against good players a small bet often works as well as a large one unless you need them to see that the pot odds are wrong. Against weaker players never assume they even know what pot odds are or how to use them.

A larger bet tends to work better against weak players who don’t have a strong hand. But a weak player with a flush draw may call off their entire stack to try to hit the flush, so you need to try to recognize when this is a possibility.

You can still make a semi bluff against a weak payer drawing to a flush, but you need to have a made hand that stands a good chance to win when they don’t hit the flush.

When you raise before the flop and make a bet on the flop you should make all of your continuation bets, made hand bets, and semi bluffs roughly the same size. This way your opponents can’t tell what kind of hand you have by the size of your bet.

A bet of close to half the size of the pot is a good standard bet in this situation. So if the pot has $100 in it bet around $50. A bet of $40 to $60 is usually fine, as long as you stay close to half the pot.

Some aggressive players like to bet the size of the pot in these situations but against better players this will cost you money in the long run.

The key is making your semi bluffs look the same as the bets you make when you’re trying to build the pot. Too many beginning players try to get fancy with their bet sizing and make mistakes that give away the strength of their hand.

If your opponents can’t tell the difference between when you’re building the pot with a strong hand and when you’re bluffing it gives you an advantage.

You should make more semi bluffs from late position than from early position. When you play in late position you have the advantage of knowing what your opponents do on each round of betting before you have to act.

This is such a strong advantage that semi bluffs always work better when you have position. Starting in early position you can make more semi bluffs in each position as you go around to late position.

With a hand that you semi bluff with 50% of the time you might only do it 10% of the time in early position and 90% of the time from late position.

As a beginning player you should try to play in games against weak opponents, but if you’re playing at a table with many good players you may be able to semi bluff slightly more from early position. Good players respect and understand position and when you bet from early position it’s a strong show of strength.

But if they catch you betting from early position with a weak hand you shouldn’t do it again for a long time.

What To Do When You Get Re-Raised

When you make a semi bluff and get raised you need to immediately forget about any kind of bluff and start looking at the pot odds and your chance to win the hand. A semi bluff shows strength and when an opponent raises it shows that they either think their hand is better or that you’re weak.

If you have a strong draw you may be getting the correct pot odds to make a call, but if you’re weak the best play is usually to fold.

The first example I gave in the introduction of the hand with a flush draw and open end straight draw is the type of hand that you can consider re-raising with when you get a semi bluff raised. But you probably need to be willing to play for your entire stack in this situation.

And any time you’re willing to play for your entire stack and an opponent shows aggression it’s always better to be the one that pushes all in. In this example if you continue with the hand after being re-raised you should usually just move all in.

When you get called you’re probably going to need to hit your draw to win, but many times the all in move will force your opponent to fold and you can win the pot immediately.

When you’re in doubt with a weak hand and / or draw the best play is to fold. Remember that you still have to play the turn and river, so you may be forced to invest a great deal more money to get to the show down at the end.

I don’t like to call a re-raise of my semi bluff; preferring to either fold or raise in most situations. But if the pot odds are correct for a call I do call occasionally.

It’s very important to learn as much about your opponents as possible as quickly as possible so you can use the information in these situations. Try to avoid semi bluffing too much against good players because they may be able to pick up on what you’re doing easier and turn the tables on you.

Conclusion

Learning how to use a semi bluff effectively can quickly improve your Texas holdem game. Use the advice included on this page and you can become a semi bluff master in no time.

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Poker is a simple game. Or so it seems at first. But you soon realise it is full of nuance. To be successful you need a beginners poker strategy to play better Texas Holdem poker.

This guide will help you to work out how to get better at poker, what hands to play when, and is essential for beginners and useful for intermediate players.

Poker strategy for beginners; Position

One of the most important things to understand is position on the table and how to play it. The best position to be is the dealer, as pre-flop there are only two players to act after them and post flop they are the last person to act, which means they get to see what their opponents do. This yields a massive advantage, and means that pre flop you can afford to play weaker, or any, hands, and get away with a big bet post flop which allows you to take the hand down, depending on the action before. If you want to know how to get better at poker then understanding positional play is the first step.

Table position cuts down a lot of hands you might want to play. That’s because if you are in an early position on the table, even with good starting hands, you might have to throw them away, and your chips. The reason being if you don’t hit the board on the flop and there are big bets in later positions you will have to fold. That is why it’s good to get to know optimal starting hand play by position. Check out the table below and along with the winning hand rankings we have been through, memorise it.

Hands in the first four positions. (Small blind, big blind, UTG and UTG+1);

Pairs	Suited	Unsuited
Sevens to Aces	Ace with K,Q,J,10	Ace with K,Q,J,10,
K with Q,J,10	King with Q,J
Queen with J,10
Jack with 10,9
Ten with 9

Hands in the middle positions;

Pairs	Suited	Unsuited
Fives, sixes	Ace with 9,8,7,6	King with 10
King with 9	Queen with J,10
Queen with J,10	Jack with 10
Jack with 8
Ten with 8
Nine with 8

Late position opening hands. Dealer, the cut-off, the cut-off +1;

Pairs	Suited	Unsuited
Fours, threes, twos	Ace with 5,4,3,2	King with 9
King with 8,7,6,5,4,3,2	Queen with 9
Ten with 7	Jack with 9,8
Nine with 7,6	Ten with 9,8
Eight with 7,6	Nine with 8,7
Seven with 6,5	Eight with 7
Six with 5
Five with 4

Poker strategy for beginners; Folding

You shouldn’t be playing too many hands. Generally about 15% is recommended when you start playing poker, which means you are throwing about 85% of your hands away. This is very frustrating when you want to play and have fun. As you get better and learn a bit more about the play you can open up slowly and play a broader range, increasing the percentage of starting hands. But poker is about mathematical probabilities, and while playing the four and six of clubs in early position might end up getting you a big hand, most of the time it won’t, and you will lose way more by constantly playing hands like this than you will win over time. If you want to make that sort of play, you have to act as if you are starting with a pair of aces, then follow it through post flop, turn and river, but you only have to get one person not believing you – and some players are very good at reading your likely cards – and you will be in all sorts of trouble.

So be prepared to fold. Beginners call bets way too often, why not after all its fun, but most will get crushed and give their chips or cash away. This is basic Texas Holdem strategy.

Poker strategy for beginners; Aggression

If you want to know how to win at Texas Holdem poker, aggression should be your friend. When you have the right cards, this is a basic poker strategy for beginners. We have established that you should only be playing a small percentage of the hands you get, but when you do get them, you need to be aggressive. You need to be betting and raising, not just calling other peoples bets. A poker axiom is ‘never a caller be’. If you start with pocket pairs (a pair in your hand, i.e. AA, KK, QQ, etc), raise pre-flop. There are many reasons for this and one is that you want to eliminate marginal hands that players might limp in with in the hope of hitting two pair or better. If you limp in the pot with a big hand hoping to make a disguised big hand, you might, but not very often. Take control and raise pre-flop.

Poker strategy for beginners; C-Betting

If you raise with high cards and the flop is below them, hit the board hard with more chips. This is called a continuation, or C-bet. You raised, representing strength, and you follow it up with a C-bet to hammer home the point. If your pair is mid range and higher cards come on the flop, think carefully about what to do. Could the other person have hit? It might be worth putting out a good sized seed bet to see if the other players fold, and if you are prepared to call a twenty dollar bet you should be making the bet. You need to make the other person have to think about their action. You don’t want them making you think about yours. If you get re-raised you let your hand go, and if you get called and it goes to the river, you take it very easy and carefully consider your next action. You don’t want to keep leaking chips.

Texas Holdem Poker Beginners Guidelines

If you are in late position with your premium hand, and you don’t hit, but the table checks around to you, this is a good position to C-bet, because you probably do have the best hand, and even if you don’t, the other players can’t call your bet if they also hit nothing. But in early position, you can’t do that action because you don’t know what the players behind you will do.

And then…

On the turn keep on betting if you have a good hand and you don’t feel your opponent has a good hand. If your opponent is aggressively playing their cards, be prepared to fold. The worst thing you can do if you haven’t made a hand yet, is to check – call, you are throwing chips away. And if you have made a really good hand, the best thing you can do is check –raise, which gets your opponent thinking and wins you pots.

Keep your game simple and clean. If you think you have the best hand or have a really good draw to a straight or flush, bet. Build the pot so when you win its full. Otherwise be prepared to throw your cards away to an opponent’s bet. It’s a lot to learn but you have to understand it if you want to understand how to master poker.

Poker strategy for beginners; Bluffing

You might be thinking that if you want to play better Texas Holdem poker you should bluff a lot. It might seem like a strategy to win in poker, but it isn’t and you shouldn’t. What we are talking about here is big bluffs for big pots, not the C-bets when you are in position and haven’t hit. Most professionals don’t bluff much, and neither should you. If you do at all, it should only be once or twice in a game. There is a saying in poker you need to pay attention to; ‘you can’t bluff a fish’. This means that if there is a poor or inexperienced player in the hand you shouldn’t try to bluff them because they will either fail to recognise the possibility that you have a great hand, or they will say to themselves ‘Lets have some fun and see if I can improve my tiny hand’, and they call anyway with their low hand. And you lose all your chips.

Poker strategy for beginners; Summary of the best poker strategy

Texas Holdem Poker Beginners Guides

• Be prepared to fold. A fold made is chips saved. You don’t get many great hands in Texas Holdem poker. You should be throwing a lot of hands away. Patience is a valuable asset when you start to play.
• Position is vital. Don’t play many hands in early position. Play a wider range in later position.
• Aggression wins games. When you have good starting hands, or a good hand on the board, be aggressive.

Texas Holdem Poker Beginners Guide Free

None of this guarantees you will win in poker, because you can do all the right things and you still lose. There is no single strategy to win in poker; you have to adapt. In this way you will learn how to master poker. As well as understanding the above poker strategy for beginners, the best answer to ‘how to get better at poker’ is to play, and learn the best poker strategy for you from experience.

Want to learn Omaha poker strategy? Look here.