How to Play Different NL Hold'em Hands For Total Newbies
The following is a thought I had on the nature of the way new players learn NLHE in terms of structure and the order of things that are learned. Some people would argue that the real basics are hand reading, understanding ranges, betting, and so on, but a complete newbie can't understand those things with no understanding of their context. And so I present the following, which I believe is the beginning of the learning process for most new players, broken down into a structure that I think is easy to understand and grow out of when the time is right.
For the complete newbie's purposes, there are three kinds of No-Limit Hold'em hands that will often continue past the flop. Combined with some starting hand requirements that come from an understanding of position, after the newbie learns how to play these three types of hands, not only am I pretty sure they could beat up to 10nl at the very least, but they've started cultivating the skills needed to play NLHE well in general:
1. Small-mid pairs that hit sets
2. Top pairs battling draws and vice versa
3. Everything else
1. Small-mid pairs that hit sets
We want to be getting good implied odds on the stacks of our respective villains, which usually means around 20:1 or so if we're just against one person, and 15:1 or so against more than one person. If we hit a set then we want to start getting it in, etc. The easiest hands to play. Post-flop is similar to top-pair type hands that score two-pair or better.
2. Top pairs battling draws and vice versa
This is where an understanding of outs and pot odds and implied odds first come in, along with semibluffs. When we have a draw, we want to put money in if we think we'll have an edge based on the odds and we want to get out if we don't. When we have the top pair or overpair type hand, we want to be betting enough to try to give the other player bad odds, etc., but without over-betting the pot or whatever.
3. Everything else
This is where we learn how to continuation bet with missed overs and other topics. Hand type #2 will make us better at hand reading which will make us perform better at this hand type when we have pairs that aren't top pair. This is the hardest hand type for newbies because it's hard to play without some kind of understanding of what's going on. Eventually, this is the type of hand that will make us better at putting people on ranges and "playing poker".
Re: How to Play Different NL Hold'em Hands For Total Newbies
Quote:
Originally Posted by spoonitnow
3. Everything else
This is where we learn how to continuation bet with missed overs and other topics. Hand type #2 will make us better at hand reading which will make us perform better at this hand type when we have pairs that aren't top pair. This is the hardest hand type for newbies because it's hard to play without some kind of understanding of what's going on. Eventually, this is the type of hand that will make us better at putting people on ranges and "playing poker".
Two of my Spoony favs: Spoon's Good Example of When to Cbet and A Good Example of When Not to Cbet.
This post didn't get any love. I checked it when it was posted, and thought vnh. Noobies should be reading and thinking about this. Hell, I reread it and rethought about it. Profitably.
