Continuing with examples… Example 2 – Betting Draws for Value We are on the button in a standard loose-passive game.  4 players limp to us and we have KhQh.  What should we do? Answer – raise.  Again, even though we are behind Ax and small pairs, a hand like KQ suited plays so well multiway [...]

My previous 11 posts have gone through some strategic and theoretical guidelines.  However, for me at least, it is much easier to grasp concepts with examples.  So in however many post it will take me to finish this guide, I am going to use examples to try and bring everything together.  In all of my [...]

Implied Odds vs. Pot Odds In a previous post (part 9 to this guide), I defined pot odds as the ratio of the amount of money already in the pot to the amount of money you have to call to stay in a hand.  Thus if the pot has $40 and you have to call [...]

Counting Outs Continued In my last post I gave a very cut and dry example of counting outs when you have an open-end straight draw and it is very unlikely that anything else will win you the hand.  In that case you have 8 outs. In many cases your outs won’t be so cut and [...]

After 8 posts which could easily be summed up by saying raise with your value hands preflop and tighten up otherwise, we are finally on to postflop play.  I believe that a good preflop game will make you a breakevenish player, but when you add good postflop play to that you will become a consistent [...]

Before I move on to flop play I just want to do a quick recap of preflop play and guidelines. 1) Tight is Right The biggest mistake most small stakes players make is that they just play way too many hands preflop.  Your only objective preflop should be to play hands that have a positive [...]

In my last posts I went over some specific hands and talked about how they generally should be played.  In this post I am going to go over some general preflop concepts. Playing from the Blinds Many players make mistakes from playing the blinds.  Most players continue to play too many hands from the SB [...]

4) The Small Broadways (KT; QJ-QT; JT) The first thing to note with all of these hands is that suitedness really increases their playability.  All of these hands are good hands to play in multi-way pots because they can win occasionally just by hitting top pair; they also will often win because they have the [...]

In this post I am going to continue with my basic guide on how to play specific hands preflop. 2) The Big Broadways and a note about suitedness (AQ-AT; KQ-KJ) Our big broadway cards are profitable because most limit players are playing way too many hands, so when we hit top pair with these hands [...]

It is finally time to start getting to the nitty gritty.  My previous posts have dealt more with getting you psychologically prepared for the game, and that is a very important part of the game, but most people reading this are likely to be more interested in finding some sort of chart so that they [...]