Tips Texas Holdem Strategy

Posted on by admin

Whether you’re a novice Texas Hold’em player or a seasoned tournament expert, understanding cash game strategy will help you outsmart your opponents. Six-time Poker World Series winner Daniel Negreanu has spent decades honing his poker strategy, which includes everything from value bets to how to avoid tilt and proper bankroll management. Advance your poker game from Daniel Negreanu’s MasterClass and make every hand your best hand.

Poker Tournament Strategy

Whether you’re playing micro stakes tournaments or the Sunday Million – you need to know what you’re doing to have a chance at winning. That seems obvious right? But trust me, there are too many players entering tournaments with no clue. That’s great news for you though cos it mean’s poker is not dead, despite what you hear. This article is going to give you poker tournament strategy tips that can be used to increase your cash rate, final tables and wins.

Don’t stop stealing the blinds

One of the most important pieces of Texas Hold’em strategy I can impart is to be aggressive. There are lots of ways to be a winner at poker but none of them, to my knowledge, involve playing timidly. You need to be aggressive when you play pots. A tight aggressive style will help you beat the micro and low stakes games still. In any type of game, strategy is an important part of winning. Adapting to the differences in each game, understanding the importance of position and realizing that knowledge is essential are three main parts of Texas Holdem strategy.

Tournament poker regs seem to nit it up and count on making it deep with premium hands. Don’t be one of them. Stay active, keep stealing the blinds from late position and don’t give up. A lot of poker sites are advocating the slow down approach but that’s what your opponents want. Regs are playing too many tables, not paying enough attention and missing profitable spots to steal the blinds. Tournament poker will always reward those who are able to consistently steal blinds and keep their stack alive. The fact that people are defending their blinds loosely should not make you fold more often in late position. Why? You have position. You have the advantage in a hand, even if your hand is weaker. Never forget that.

Pre-flop bet sizing

Consistency is very important when it comes to raising pre-flop. It’s fine if you want to make it 2.5x then stick with that. Please don’t change it based on hand strength. It’s 2020 and even the most basic of poker players will notice and instantly tag you. If you are a poker training video membership member, you’ll know my preference re’ pre-flop bet sizing but I will re-iterate it here non-members.

Early Position Min Raise

When I’m raising from early position, I lack information on the rest of the table. I want to open raise if I play but I also want to steal cheaply and/or keep the pot smaller against my opponents that flat in position. I also have no problem with it folding to the big blind and them calling a min raise. In fact, I welcome it. I will have position, a better hand and have increased the pot a little. My hand range is likely to be stronger than theirs and I have the pre-flop aggression.

Middle Position 2.2x

With fewer opponents behind us, I am happy to increase the sizing a bit and play a slightly bigger pot against the blinds. I don’t want to raise too much as I am still potentially acting first post-flop if someone in position calls. I am also slightly dissuading the blinds to call which is no bad thing in tournaments. I am likely to have a wider range from here so I have no problem with them just folding.

Late Position 2.5x

This may seem counter intuitive to some. Why raise more with a wider range? I want to play bigger pots when I have positional advantage. Sure, sometimes I will be light but sometimes I will be strong too. I want to charge the blinds more than the minimum to play against my wider range. By making it 2.5x I am also protecting myself against 3 bet bluffs a little more. Consider a min raise from the button. The big blind is far more likely to 3 bet bluff that than a bigger raise.

Notice – my pre-flop raises changes based on position – it doesn’t change based on hand strength. Therefore, it is logically consistent as I am raising 2.5x from late position with A-A and K-6s.

Defend the big blind

Everyone and their dog are loving the small ball approach these days. The standard small raise is popular and with good reason – it works. One of the results of this is that you have to defend your big blind more. It means calling raises with hands you won’t necessarily want to but pot odds and solid poker tournament strategy dictate you must. Let’s look at a quick example to illustrate this.
Blinds – 600/1,200 (antes 120)
Player A- 42,500
You – 36,900

It folds to Player A on the button. He is a capable tournament player. He raises to 2,500. The small blind folds and the action is on you. Before even looking at your hand, let’s do some poker maths.
Pot – (1,080 antes, 1,800 in blinds + 2,500) = 5,380
Cost to call – 1,300
Equity needed to call – 19.4%

As you can see, you need to defend super wide in this spot. You just can’t afford to fold too many hands when you are getting these kind of prices in big blind.

Ultimate texas holdem tips strategy

3 Bet with 30 bbs +

Tournament poker is often playing shorter stacks and less “poker” playing but that doesn’t mean you must play shove or fold poker. You don’t want to 3 bet bluff with short effective stacks cos it means the 4 bet from your opponent will always be all in. With slightly deeper stacks though (30 bbs+), you can afford to 3 bet bluff and take away a lot of pots. Poker tournament strategy is usually to attack short stacks. Screw that, 3 bet bluff the bigger stacks. I find that the big stacks are just as protective as the shorter stacks, if not more. It also means you can potentially get the last bet in if they decide to 4 bet. Good spots for 3 betting are when the raise has come from middle or late position.

CAUTION – Avoid 3 bet bluffing when they are raising from under the gun or UTG +1 as their range is likely to be tighter.

Learn continuation betting strategy

This article is dedicated to poker tournament strategy, not continuation betting but the fact is, c betting is an important part of tournament poker. You need to understand which boards favour your perceived range and what favours your opponent. A lot of players waste chips throwing out foolish continuation bets. You need to appreciate board texture, number of opponents and stack sizes when choosing whether to continuation bet or not. If you want more help with continuation betting, check out our article on the do’s and don’ts of continuation betting.

Isolate the limper(s)

Texas

An oldie but goody. Raising over a limper or limpers is still a very profitable play. It’s crazy to think there are still players that adopt this limp in mentality, but it’s great for us. If people want to try and limp into the pot with pocket 3s or A-9 offsuit, that’s fine, we will take their blinds all day. In some scenarios, it may seem prudent to over-limp but most of the time, just raise it 4x and win it. If they call, you can often just win it with a flop bet anyway. It’s a great way to build a stack in tournament poker and is also good for your table image as people. This might help you get paid later in the tournament.

Practice heads up poker

Tips Texas Holdem Strategy Holdem

Many tournaments end in deals being done but what if yours doesn’t? What if you’re against a tough player or someone unwilling to deal. You need to know how to play 1 on 1. After all, if you want to win the tournament you have to beat the last opponent. Heads up is a great poker format. Some basic heads up tips are below:

  • Raise every button
  • Bet most flops
  • Check raise more
  • Bluff catch 2nd pair down
  • Stay on top of your opponent, don’t let up
  • Don’t show bluffs
Strategy

Join Poker Training Video Membership

I hope you enjoyed this article on poker tournament strategy tips for 2020 and beyond. A final tip is a little plug for our training videos. If you enjoyed this article and would like to learn more, you can. By join as a member you can gain access to almost 1,000 minutes of poker training videos. I give more tips, secrets and advice beyond this article. You can see how I play tournaments, cash games, SNGs and strategy lectures designed to help members make money. The price of membership is only £49.99 for 1 year. You can join by clicking below or clicking the banner below for information. Once you’ve paid for membership, you will be sent your personal login details within 24 hours.

Become a Poker Training Video Member

Ultimate Texas Holdem Tips Strategy

The moment you find yourself for the first time playing poker for real money you will probably head out for the small stakes Texas Hold’em No limit cash games. These are probably the best way to start your online real money poker journey. In this article we are going to present you some tips that are going to help you survive at the low stakes games.

The moment you find yourself at the small stakes games you are not going to make a lot of money out of blinds stealing, in case you would like to win some serious amount of cash, you will have to wait to get a premium hand and get paid off. So when playing at the small stakes the best thing to do is to wait patiently to get a good hand and get called and get a medium sized pot. By playing like this you can be sure that on the long term, your online poker bankroll is going to increase. You should note that you can play poker on Betfair Casino, which is a great platform for newcomers and pros alike.

Tips Texas Holdem Strategy Rules

At online poker you must be very selective when choosing an online poker table. This means that you will have to make some research in order to find a table that is going to help win. At the small stakes there are plenty of beginner players so there are plenty of tables full of fish. This means that you have a good variety of tables available to choose from. You must go for those tables that will allow seeing the flops cheaply. This way you will get a good idea about what is going to happen at that hand, and at the same time you will not have to make too much of an investment to see the flop. This way if you play your cards right it’s only a matter of time until you will manage to succeed. Which casino should you use? Betfair Casino is where you can play online, this is because it provides a great experience for those wanting to play poker.

When playing at the small stake no limit Texas Hold’em, you should always avoid playing attractive looking hands that can also be dangerous like: KJ, Q10, A10.

Strategy

And you should not play all your hands. The strategy that you are going to use before the flop is considered to be the primary strategy for casual players. If you will adopt a selective pre-flop strategy, it means that you will not have to play each and every hand that you receive. Usually the overall percentage of the hands that you have to play is around 15-20%. All the other non-premium hands must be folded. That’s what most of the player do, and this is one of the secrets, that are going to help you succeed.

The position that you have is very important and a good position is going to give you the most information you need about your opponents. This means that when you find yourself in a good position, you can consider yourself ready to react to what the others have done. So position is a key concept in online poker.

What Are The General Rules of Poker?

September 27, 2014

How wagering works when playing at online casinos

October 11, 2013

Who Are Some of The Best Canadian Poker Players?

December 9, 2014

Tips on how to memorize poker hands

November 9, 2013

Community cards, betting rounds and streets in poker

August 11, 2020

Why William Hill is a great site for Canadian Poker Players

January 29, 2014

Tips On Texas Holdem Strategy

Poker texas holdem strategy tips

What Makes Online Poker So Attractive

May 29, 2014

Poker Texas Holdem Strategy Tips

Bitcoins & Poker: All You Need To Know

June 26, 2016