Developing a Strategy

Everyone has their own style and playing poker with personal style and strategy is no exception.  When you begin to play Texas Hold ‘Em, you will need to review the odds we have provided, and the techniques and methods, and decide what will work for you. 

When you play Texas Hold ‘Em online, it is even MORE important to have a strategy.  If you do not continue to learn and develop skills, you will remain a fish.  Strategy is not something that is static. 

You must understand the odds, the probabilities and you must be willing to adjust your strategy for each game, the players at the table and the game dynamic. 

You should know that online poker is going to seem faster and more aggressive to a newcomer. 

If you consider each decision you make throughout the game, you can see that every time you decide to play a certain way or use a certain tactic, you take a turn down a different branch of the path. 

When the game ends, your outcome is determined by all the small choices you have made along the way. 

Bluffing - When you are considering your overall strategy, do not go right to bluffing as an automatic technique.  Whenever you decide that the conditions are right to fluff, remember that everyone else may also be making that assessment. 

If, over time, you see that a player always seems to bluff in a particular situation, you need to consider that as part of their profile.  But understand that others will also note the same thing about you. 

Bluffing is effective if you do it sparingly so that it is not EXPECTED or anticipated.

If you get caught bluffing, just sit tight.  Don’t try it again right away. 

You must build a reputation and make the other players think that the bluff you made was just an aberration, and that you aren’t the kind that will bluff at every opportunity. 

When next you choose to do so, you can then catch the table by surprise.  Don’t bluff against aces.  The chances are that someone may have a pair. 

Don’t bluff against a flop like ‘KQ9’.  The other players at the table have probably all decided they make something out of the flop and they will stay in anyway.

If you are playing at a large table, bluffing is probably not a good idea.  Given the number of players (8-10) there is a very good chance that one or more of the players will stay in and, if you bluff, you will just raise the pot and the resulting loss.  The odds do not support this kind of play.

Remember that if you are in a blind position, most players will expect you to bluff, even if you have a good hand, so you have to carefully consider the flop cards before you decide whether bluffing is worth the risk.

You should know that you are likely to encounter more bluffing in online games.  Online players feel more anonymous and believe they can hide behind that anonymity to fool other players by bluffing or wild play. 

The concept of replacing money with chips is a good psychological ploy because players do not readily relate the chips to money in the same way they would if they saw a hundred dollar bill on the table. 

Now consider the concept of pushing a button to bet.  There is even LESS connection to one’s own financial health and the monetary impact of that bluff or bet.  Online players seem ready to throw caution to the wind and bluffing is rampant. 

You cannot assume your opponents are ALWAYS bluffing but you will need to call and raise more often to keep yourself in the game and counter what may be a bluff. 

That also means that you probably want to limit your own bluffing and just play a good game.  In spite of that, you will find that other players will call more often because many players PRESUME that others are bluffing. 

If you are considering a bluff, in general, you should consider the number of people at the table.  It is easier to bluff a couple of people than to bluff the whole table and with a table of 10 people, the chances are good that someone will read you.  

Even at a small table, you may have to be patient and keep bluffing through a couple of rounds in order to ‘prove’ that you are serious.  If that is the case, you had better be sure that these players are not going to keep calling your bluff, or you could end up making a costly mistake.

If you are playing with people who fold easily, you can usually bluff to get them out of the game if that works for you.  In that case, bluff early and if they do not fold, you will have to rethink your strategy.   There must be a reason the player is staying in the game. 

Don’t get in over your head.  Know the other players and take notice of any behavior that is not common for them. 

If you bluff in a late position after everyone else has checked, you MAY force out some players, but not all of them.  Many players will stay in just because they feel the odds are in their favor at that point.

If you have been playing at the table for a while and built some respect from other players, that perception alone might give you the ability to bluff and be taken at face value. 

To do this, you will have to play the bluff hand exactly as you did the winning hands that came before.  That way you lead the other players to believe you are on a roll.

You can often bluff when there is a pair on the boards.  If it is a pair that is an eight or below, this bluff can be quite effective.  

Read the tells and see who is not really fully engaged in the game.  These players will often give away the fact that they HAD a card.  

Just keep in mind that if you are playing with experienced players, they will know this trick and will be gunning for you when you bluff.

Do not be afraid to consider the partial bluff.  You don’t have to have a really bad hand to bluff.  What if your hand is OK but you are hoping it might improve.  You just need everyone to believe that you have a GREAT hand so you can continue and hope for a good pot. 

You have to look at the odds that you might GET that hand and put your best face on.  If you are using this technique, it will be more effective if you are sitting at a larger table.  The odds that you can improve your so-so hand are better in this case. 

Before we leave this topic, let’s cross the line from ‘bluffing’ to ‘cheating’. 

Though cheating in online poker is pretty hard, given the fact that the dealer is in fact a software program, you should probably be more concerned about collusion.   This can happen when two or more players decide to go up against an opponent by talking to each other to share their cards and their strategy. 

It has gotten more difficult to do this online, but some players know each other from previous games and they can share information in a separate chat or IM session on their computer or talk to each other on the phone to share strategies. 

Most good online poker casinos look for players that always play at the same table and will throw them out of a game if they see that there is evidence of collusion. 

If you suspect collusion (which often happens among players with little skill, so they may not be able to do much damage, anyway) you should look for the following evidence:

They are milking the third player to get a maximum betting scenario going and then for no apparent reason one of them will fold with only one bet to go and a huge pot on the table.

Alternatively one of the players in collusion might end up having a really poor hand which would make you question their original raising and re-raising strategy. 

If their judgment in that regard seems unreasonable, given all the other signs, then you may have evidence that someone is trying to cheat.

If you believe players are in collusion, do not approach the player but rather go to the casino administrator and provide the evidence and information so that the administrator can follow up on the claim.

Watching the Speed of the Check and Raise - Let’s think about the ‘tells’ or how you figure out what a player may have and how they are going to play the game. 

We will talk later about player behavior, but right now, you want to focus on how YOUR STRATEGY changes when you think you know what a player is doing.

When you are playing online poker, you can ‘in turn’ button will give you a lot of information about another player.  If the player activates the button immediately, you can pretty well figure that the player has a strong hand. 

If you pause a moment before you act, and your opponents check right away AS SOON AS YOU FINISH checking, they probably don’t have much. 

When the first player checks and you bet or raise, look to see whether the player next to you raises immediately.  If so, she/he probably had the button checked already and was going to raise regardless of what you did.  What does that tell you? 

Watching the Slow Player - If you use the advantages you have in online gambling, you can change your strategy as you go along, because you are getting the ‘tell’ in more ways than you would at a live table. 

If you notice that a particular player is always lagging behind and takes a long time to make a play, it could be for a variety of reasons (the player is doing something else, is insecure or is just not paying attention). 

But if that same player suddenly begins making moves promptly, it is probably because the player has just realized that he has a good hand.   Think about this within the context of play.  How will this change your strategy?

Leveraging the River - If you see a player who is stalling at the last card (The River) because the last card creates a ‘nut hand’ like a flush, you should watch the other players.  An average player might pause for a moment in thought. 

While this pause usually means a really GOOD player is trying to psych you out, when the pause comes from an average or so-so player, it usually means that they have just been given a great hand and they are sitting in stunned silence. 

How does THAT change your strategy?  If you know this person has a good hand, what will you do?

Considering the Table – Before you start betting in the pre-flop, look at your hand AND the number and type of players at the table.  How much risk is appropriate? 

The more competition you have, the more likely someone else will have a strong hand. 

The more aggressive the players at the table the more you want to hang back and play tight.  Let those players win the blinds and then take your shot with a good hand in the pocket pre-flop. 

Look at your bankroll and figure out how much risk you can take and manage your strategy accordingly.  If you are down to your last $5.00, you will be playing a much more conservative game. 

If you are flush with cash, you can afford to take a bit more risk on a $1.00 to $2.00 table.   You may also wish to buy more chips than you need just to set expectations and intimidate your opponents.  

This larger stack also ensures that you can afford to stay in the game, so you should consider whether you can afford a large stack (say fifty times the big blind).   In more competitive online poker, you should consider going up to 100 times the big blind.  

You don’t ever want to be in a position where you are holding the big nut at the end of the game and you can’t afford to raise!  You need to come into the game with an appropriate stack. 

Assessing the Nut Hand – What if you think you have the ‘nut’ hand - the hand that no one else can beat in this game? 

You should know that most of the time, no on has the nuts. 

A ‘nut’ is three of a kind with a pair in the hole that is equal to or exceeds the highest card on the boards, with NO possibility of a flush or a straight.  

To determine whether you have the nut hand, you need to look at the possibility that anyone else can beat what you think is your ‘nut’. 

If you had a nut four-of-a-kind for example, you would have at least one of the cards on the boards in your hole cards, and there is no higher pair on the boards and no possibility of a straight flush. 

Using the Weak Player to Your Advantage – When you develop your game and your strategy, you can add to your stack by playing a hand that may not be a winner for a fish, but one that you think you can finesse to get the fish’s money. 

Play well and play when you know there is a bad player opposite you. 

If you happen to sit down at a table where there are a lot of passive, tight games being played, and you see one person who is playing aggressively and badly, you would be foolish not to call that person out and ‘outplay’ them.  But you should only do that if you know more than the person you are facing. 

What you should know is that many people play the game of Texas Hold ‘Em, using a slightly backwards strategy.  They play loose and go through a number of flops in the early rounds and then they panic and play tight in subsequent rounds.  

If you don’t throw away your chips in early rounds, you can use them later to your advantage.  If you have a bad hand that looks good in a fish’s eyes, you can play the game and win.

Consider the results of a recent study by a large online casino.  When looking at the results of 6,000,000 Texas Hold ‘Em games, the hands that lost the most money were not the WORST hands according to the odds. 

The hands that lost most consistently were hands that SHOULD do better in the odds, but were played in a cavalier fashion by fish who really thought they had something.  An A2, or a 23 are consistently overvalued in the eyes of a fish.  

Establishing the Chip Stack – If you are playing a $2.00 to $4.00 game, you should start with $400-800 (about 100 times the big blind). 
Covering yourself this way should ensure that you will not be short-stacked no matter how the game may evolve or your style of play.  If you are a really aggressive player, you will need more chips in the stack. 

Consider that a large stack will also create an image that other players will respect, especially if they are fish.  So, you can use your stack for intimidation.  Bigger is better! 

Just be sure you have enough left in the bank so you can play in a different game if you want to do so.  Otherwise you will have to cash out of one game before you can get into another one.

Watch the Rake – The rake (the profit taken from each pot) in an online casino ensures that the casino makes a lot of money.  The more games you play, the more money the casino makes on the rake.

Some online casinos only rake the pot when it reaches a certain dollar amount.  If the rake is a percentage 4-10%, your aggressive strategy will not help you as much.  If you want to play an aggressive game, look for a flat fee so that you are not “raked over the coals”. 

Every time you try to blind steal or bluff in a percentage rake game, you will give up 4-10% of what is gained.  If you are a fish at a percentage table, play tighter than you usually would.  If you are a good player, you will have to be a BETTER player to overcome the rake and still win what you want. 

Let’s say that the pot is $125 and the house takes an initial $1.00 rake and five percent of the pot balance at the end of the game.  The winners get 94.4% of the pot and the house gets 5.6% in total. 

If you are trying to pay a bill with your winnings, remember the casino will skim off the rake before you can take home your money!

Playing in Short Sessions – When you are playing online Texas Hold ‘Em, you can switch to another game, or play in short sessions.  Because players are always moving around, it is less likely that your opponent will thoroughly evaluate your playing style or your skill. 

If you are playing in a real brick and mortar casino, you are usually playing with the same players for five to eight hours at a time. 

You can see where these players would get to know your style and strategy, intimately, and they would start to use that against you. 

In an online casino, you can play a straight ahead game with less bluffing and deception.  You may not benefit from a bluffing image online, because your opponents will not have enough time to see that you do this well and to respect your play. 

Playing online means you don’t have to mix up your style and strategy as much, although if you play in a particular casino or against a lot of the same players all the time you will have to factor that familiarity into your strategy and approach. 

Making the Early Choices – You should know that early choices matter more than late choices in Texas Hold ‘Em.  Remember that every step you take, brings you down a certain path and you cannot turn back. 

Realizing you should have done something differently at the end of the game may give you valuable insight and experience, but it will not win you the pot.

The choice you make with your hole (pocket) cards and the decisions you make at the beginning of the game will follow you through the rest of the game. 

Let’s look at this in a purely objective way: 

That sounds like pretty basic information, doesn’t it?  What it means is that if you KNOW your opponent has you beat at one of these points in the game, you should not be calling heavily for the next card. 

You should evaluate your options and understand the odds so you do not risk more than a reasonable amount.

Using the Lobby – Spend time in the lobby and check out limits, tables and games.  Look at the average pot size at these tables, the number of players who see the flop, the number of hands played in the past hour and the names of the players at the table and on the waiting list. 

Your winning strategy should start before you ever sit down at a table and engage in a game.  It should start with your choice of a table and players. 

In online Texas Hold ‘Em, you are fortunate to have the ability to get a lot of information about a table and the players before you ever sit down. USE THAT INFORMATION! 

The most popular online casinos provide lots of information and options, so you can find games that fit your style and skill.  Do not be so anxious to sit down and lose your money that you fail to use the data and options available to you. 

This information will make you a wiser and better player and will help you improve your skills more quickly and win money while you are learning.

There is no doubt that math and the odds can help you reduce the amount of ‘luck’ you need and win more often. 

Do not think that you can have a strategy without understanding the strongest hands, the odds for and against you and your position at the table.

Whatever strategy you develop and use must consider the ‘value of your hand’. 

So, let’s dive in and look at odds and other considerations that will make you a better player.