Poker Strategy
FTR will turn you into a winning poker player!
Welcome to FTR’s Poker Strategy section! We currently have 508 free Poker Strategy articles in our ever growing archive.
These strategy articles contain as much information as you would find in multiple poker books – for free! Make sure you take advantage of this free poker strategy and poker training, on all of the topics shown below. Whether you’re a beginner, seasoned professional, cash game grinder, or tournament specialist, there is something to help take your game to the next level.
FTR has been featured by many poker websites and magazines over the years. In Bluff Magazine, Lee Jones mentioned that FlopTurnRiver.com has absolute golden information you can use to improve your game. Poker pro Chris “Wallace” Fox also recommended FlopTurnRiver.com as a free poker training site in Poker Pro Magazine. We also have many reader testimonials from our members saying FTR made them a winning poker player.
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Categories in Poker Strategy
Beginner Poker
112 Articles
Basic strategy concepts to teach new players how to play poker.
Cash Games
58 Articles
When the value of your chips actually means something.
Heads Up
6 Articles
Learn how to battle and beat your opponents, mano y mano.
Limit Hold'em
38 Articles
Strategy articles that help you bet, raise, 3-bet, and cap your bets.
Live Poker
38 Articles
Learn how to transition from online play to your local casino.
MTT
35 Articles
We teach you how to make the final table and lock up a big score.
No Limit Hold'em
182 Articles
What are the two most powerful words in poker? I’m all-in.
Omaha
14 Articles
When two cards just aren’t enough.
Open Face Chinese
4 Articles
Learn how to get those Queens up top for Fantasy Land.
Poker Dictionary
1,236 Articles
Learn the lingo and terms used by poker players.
Poker Psychology
67 Articles
The power of the mind in poker: There is no spade.
Poker Rules
14 Articles
The rules of the road. Learn how to play various forms of poker.
Poker Tools
37 Articles
Improve your game by learning how to use the tools of the trade.
Poker Videos
98 Articles
Watch and learn from the best in the world.
SNG
41 Articles
For the players who only have two decisions, shove or fold.
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Featured Poker Strategy Articles
Most Recent Articles in Poker Strategy
A Different kind of quiz for SHNL: Adjusting?
So everyone who reads and posts in this forum knows how to evaluate a HH, knows about preflop, knows about continuation betting and knows something about hand values and hand ranges. Perhaps the most important thing about poker though, and why some "bad"...
The Truth About the Dangers of Playing Under Rolled
This article aims to express just why, in a theoretical sense, you can’t play poker under rolled. It’s for people at all levels of the game who don’t know/havn’t read this stuff, and I really hope to be explicit. There are also points that even...
Jared Tendler AMA: Emotions in Poker & Correcting Mistakes
Jared Tendler AMA: Emotions in Poker & Correcting Mistakes by carlcarlsoniv | Oct 18, 2018 | FTR Interviews, Poker Videos Jared Tendler, author of the Mental Game of Poker, came to FTR recently to do an AMA where he answered our communities questions. This is the...
3 Bet Strategy
This advice was written for 200NL or lower 6Max games. It applies when effective stacks are 80-125BB preflop. Please deviate from this strategy as necessary when you have either developed good reads or know your opponent has certain assumptions about the way you play....
Exploring Open-Limping Pre-flop
We want to take a deeper look at open-limping pre-flop to see if it’s really as bad as its reputation in no-limit hold’em.
Bluff or Check? Missing the Flop in NLHE (Part 2): Flop Texture
Knowing when to bluff on the flop is determined by a large number of factors, and here we’re going to take a look at how flop texture fits into all of that.
7 Card Stud Hi/Lo Rules
7 Card Stud Hi/Lo is an exciting variant on normal 7 Card Stud play. In this split-pot format, players can win the high half of the pot, the low half of the pot or scoop the entire pot. Beware of getting quartered though! It can be costly.
ISF – Beginners Guide To Equity and Fold Equity
There has been a request for a beginners guide to equity so that’s going to be the article for this week. Equity is our mathematical chance of our hand or hand range winning the hand against our opponents hand or hand range. For example, the hand AA has 80% equity...
An Introduction to Abstract Thought in Poker
Following this system of training your brain to think about poker on a deeper level will raise your game up in a way that you can count on.
NLHE Foundations #01: Introduction to Hold’em Ranges
NLHE Foundations Course This is the first lesson in the free No-Limit Hold’em Foundations course that I’m running here on FlopTurnRiver. There’s a lot more to these lessons than what you see here. If you would like to take part in this, all you have...
Brush Up Your Semi-Bluff, and Bring Home the Bacon
Knowing how and when to semi-bluff can increase your poker winnings. The advantages of semi-bluffing include you being able to control the pot, force your opponents to fold, slow the action and win big pots. With so many benefits, semi-bluffing needs to be incorporated into your playing regime!
You Can’t Make Your Opponent Fold
A lot of people ask how to make opponents fold so they cannot suck out. Here is a long story. It will be meaningless to some. To others, it may resonate and really help. In my 20s and early 30s I practiced an old, particularly brutal martial art. For those who have...
Texas Holdem Expected Value Hand Charts – 4 Players
Below is a table of Texas Holdem starting hands, ordered by their Expected Value (EV) in a 4 player holdem game. These statistics were produced by using millions of hand histories to compute the following results. Position Cards SB BB 3 D AA 1.99 1.97 1.92 2.10 KK...
5 Card Stud Rules
5 Card Stud has long been popular in home games although it’s difficult to find online. While there are similarities between this game and 7 Card Stud, there are fewer cards dealt. One similarity between 5 Card Stud and Texas Hold’em is that there are four rounds of betting.
Short Stacked and Dangerous
It’s one of the scariest feelings in poker – You’ve just lost a huge pot to a three-to-one underdog and given up most of your stack. As you watch the opponent sort your chips and integrate them into his pile, a sickening realization creeps up on you… You’re short stacked, playing against opponents with more the five times your chip count.