Play tight but aggressive. Many amateur players make a huge mistake of playing too wide and opening too many Texas Holdem hands. The key when you are starting out is to play only your strongest hands to keep your VPIP poker stat at a lower side and avoid many tough decisions post-flop.

While your chances of winning depend on the luck of the draw, Texas hold 'em Poker also requires strategic thinking and the ability to make the best out of a lousy hand. If you want to improve your poker skills and increase your odds of winning, try these 6 tips at your next game.
Texas Hold'em Poker Tips. Newcomers to the world of poker are eager to learn the game and frequently turn to experienced players to get advice. While each poker professional seems to have his own personal playing style, based on having faced countless hands at the table, we’ve compiled a list of the tips for Texas Hold'em Poker to help you improve your game.
Texas Holdem Strategy. Texas holdem poker is the most popular card game in the United States. It’s also hugely popular in Europe and other countries. Omaha has a firm foothold in other countries, too, but Texas holdem has a big following just about everywhere. If you want to be a winning poker player, it’s almost a given.

For some people, their love of playing cards extends to the occasional game of poker including the increasingly popular game of Texas Holdem. As with all card games, there is no guaranteed way of winning but there are tips and tricks you can learn to improve both your enjoyment of the game and your chances of winning. We take a look at just a few of the well-known Texas Holdem tips for beginners.

Before the flop
One of the biggest mistakes beginners make in playing Texas Holdem poker is to try and play too many hands of cards. It is important to have an awareness of your position in relationship to the dealer – you will need a stronger hand of cards to play from an early position because there will be more players playing after you who may decide to raise or re-raise the pot. You have to be patient and wait for a good hands of cards that you can play from the best position possible.

The player to the left of the big blind is the first person to play before the flop. Both he and the other two players on his left are in the early position. The next three players are said to be in the middle position and of course the ones following that are in the late position. The blinds normally play last before the flop and first after it. The following are some ideas for recommended starting card hands and if you follow these, this will help you as a beginner poker player.

In early position
Raise with Ace-Ace King-King and Ace-King suited from any position. Call with Ace-King, Ace-Queen suited, King-Queen suited and Queen-Queen, Jack-Jack and 10-10 but fold with everything else.

In middle position
Call with nine-nine, eight-eight, Ace-Jack suited, Ace-ten suited, Queen-Jack suited, Ace-Queen, King-Queen.

In late position
Call with Ace-anycard suited, King-ten suited, Queen-ten suited, Jack-ten suited, Ace-Jack, Ace-ten and small pairs. A stronger hand of cards is needed to call a raise than to make one and if there is a raise before it is your turn to play then you should probably fold.

PLEASE NOTE: All of the above tips and tricks are suggested in good faith and it is up to you whether you want to follow these recommendations. If you do so, it is entirely at your own risk. The owners of this website accept no responsibility whatsoever for any losses incurred due to following these recommendations.

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Poker is a lot like sex. Everyone thinks they are the best, but most don’t have a clue what they are doing. — Dutch Boyd

It is very true, but hopefully by and reading our Texas Holdem Strategy section you will at least have a clue how to do well at one of them!

One of the great benefits of poker is that it is quite easy to learn the basics. The rules are quite simple and allow easy access for beginners. However, on the other hand, it is a tough game to master; there’s always something to improve upon or learn.

The basic strategy below should provide you with the groundwork for developing a dominant poker game. We link to some more advanced material throughout for anyone that is further ahead of the trend.

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Table Of Contents

Preflop Texas Holdem Strategy
- Starting Hand Types
Postflop Texas Holdem Strategy
Texas Holdem Strategy: Betting and Raising

Preflop Texas Holdem Strategy

Your preflop poker strategy forms the foundation of your game. Your first decisions will be made preflop during a hand, so it is important to get these decisions right. Thankfully this is one of the easier areas of the game to understand.

So to help you understand let’s take a quick example (click the picture to see the full replay):

We have JTs (J = Jack, T = Ten and the ‘s’ after JT means both cards are of the same suit. An ‘o' after the JT would refer to off-suit)in the first position under the gun (UTG) on a six-handed table with $1/$0.5 BB and SB. We have to decide what to do: we can raise, call (otherwise known as a limp) or fold. There are a huge number of factors which we need to take into account, and unfortunately, I won’t be able to cover them all. But I will try to cover the most fundamental factors in the coming paragraphs.

Firstly, it is very common to see new players play too many hands. They believe that they can outplay their opponents post-flop and turn a profit even with the weakest hands. This belief isn’t the case and often is the main reasons a new player loses money when starting out.

Only Play A Small Percentage Of The Hands You are Dealt

Thus the first preflop poker strategy tip is to play only a small percentage of the hands you are dealt – the type of hands to play will be discussed further on in the text. Players who play a small selection of the hand they are dealt are referred to as tight. Conversely, players who play lots of hands are known as loose.

The vast majority of winning poker players are relatively tight, and for the most part, losing players are loose. Therefore, the first important poker strategy tip:

Preflop Poker Strategy Tip 1: Only play a small percentage of the hands you are dealt.

Luckily, JTs is in the top 12% of hands and therefore is a hand we would want to continue with, in this case. We can determine ‘how strong' a hand is using a program called Equilab. So our options are now to raise or to call because our hand is too strong to fold.

Poker Tips And Tricks Texas Holdem Card Game

This result leads onto a second reason new players are unsuccessful – frequent limping

Limping is defined as calling the big blind instead of raising or folding. For example, you are first to act after you have been dealt two aces (AA) or like our example with JTs and instead of raising, you just call – this is called a limp.

Limping: Flawed Reasoning

Often, new players limp to see a cheap flop with speculative hands or to trap with strong hands such as AA or KK. Good winning players very rarely limp and there are many reasons why:

You give the other players a chance to beat you with their weak holdings. For example, if you limp with AA and your opponent in the big blind checks behind he will have a chance to outdraw you to three of a kind or two-pair. Do not give people a free chance to improve and beat your strong hands.
Raising with good hands builds the pot. A big hand deserves a big pot! Typically the only way you will win an opponent’s whole stack (all of t