Today is the day for resolutions. Well maybe tomorrow after you wake up but it is definitely that time of year. So why not make some winning poker resolutions. Here are our suggestions for beginning players.

1) Pick only one aspect of your game to work on.

Often we try to “fix everything” at once. Select just one thing to work on. Let’s say you play too many hands. Write down the starting hands you will play (early, middle and late position) and take that little list to the table with you. Once you have that leak in your game taken care of, you can move on to the next one.

2) Keep better and more honest records.

Nothing is worse for your game then to not keep track of your wins and losses. As a beginning poker player you cannot afford to lie to yourself. Get a little notebook and write down every session. You might want to keep separate records for live and online.

(more…)

Often there is a lot of free time at a poker table. You can just concentrate on those two rocks checking down the pot so often before you fall asleep. Here are some interesting poker numbers to while away the time between hands.

In the community card game like Hold’em or Omaha, you are dealt two cards and three of the other fifty are flopped on the board. There are a total of 19,600 uniquely different flops that can hit the table. The same is true for every other player at the table but they are not exactly the same 19,600 flops because your two cards are included in their potential flops and their two cards are included in yours. Some would argue that with ten players in the hand, there are actually only 32 cards (52-10 two card hands) available for the actual flop. But since you cannot see any cards but your own, the math is based on the remaining 50 cards you cannot see.

The full board of five cards (3 flop, 1 turn, 1 river) have an astonishing 2,118,760 unique combinations for any two card starting hand. Figure the odds on that!

(more…)

You have hit part of the flop and need to make your hand with the turn or river cards. What are the odds? These are perhaps the most underused numbers by beginning players and they are the most important odds when making decisions about calling bets on a drawing hand.

You have four cards to the flush. The odds that you will make your flush are: 19% on the turn and a cumulative 35% by the river. You are better than 1 in 3 to flush out by the river, now you can decide if calling that raise is the wise move mathematically.

The other common decision is whether or not to proceed when you have an open-ended straight draw (5678 for example); any 4 or any 9 will make your straight. Odds are that you will make your hand 17% on the turn and 32% on the river. It is good to remember that you have slightly better odds to make a flush than an open-ended straight draw. The odds are exactly half as good 8.5% and 16% if you are drawing to the inside straight (56 89).

The full house draw is a bit trickier because you have two different scenarios. You could have a set on the flop and be looking to pair up for the full house or you could have flopped two pair and need one more of either pair for the boat. There are better odds when you start with the set. A set will become a full house by the river 33% of the time but two pair only “boat up” by the river at a rate of 17%. If this one doesn’t make sense, you need to layout a hand and count the “outs” to the full house. Really, if you can visualize the cards then all of this “odds” math is much easier to remember.

-This is Beginner’s Poker Blog Post #51

Sometimes you see a flop with two unsuited, unpaired, even unconnected cards. You might be speculating but more often then not you are simply playing your blind in an unraised pot. Not matter how you got there, you might want to consider your odds of turning that trash hand into a winner.

Let’s say you see the flop with the 3 of clubs and the 10 of hearts, what are the odds that you will flop “at least a pair”? Meaning you flop a pair or two pair or even trips. Well this might surprise you but the yours are over 32%! Nearly one-third of the time you will hit ‘at least’ a pair. Here is where it gets dangerous. You must assume the other player or players in the hand starting with better hands than you. So even though you now have ‘at least’ a pair; you must consider what they have.

What about playing those rag cards and flopping two pair?

(more…)

There are some very good poker books that will tell you starting a Texas Hold’em hand with two suited cards is the most dangerous situation in the game. They say this because odds to the flush draw are perhaps the most misunderstood math in Hold’em. Here is the simple and “factual” math of the flush draw.

If you hold two suited cards, your odds of flopping a flush are 1 in 199 or 0.84%. This number considers that you have 2 of the 13 of the suit and must now flop 3 of the remaining 11 cards in that suit. You have an 11 in 50 change on the first flop card, 10 in 49 on the second (assuming you hit the first card) and 9 in 48 on the last to complete the flopped flush. Not great odds.

What is more likely to happen, at least for you to consider staying in the hand; you will flop a flush draw. Two suited cards in your hand and two more on the flop. You have an 8 to 1 chance of that happening or 10.9%. Still not great but thirteen times more likely than flopping the completed flush.

Here is the number you should commit to memory. If you flop a flush draw with two of the suit in your hand and two on the board, you have a 35% chance of making your flush by the river. You can make your betting calculations based on 35% with great accuracy.

One more bit of flush trivia. When you are playing non-suited cards, you still have a 2.24% chance to flop a flush draw, when the board comes with three of either of your two suits.

-This is Beginner’s Poker Blog Post #49

Here are a few more percentages worth knowing when you start the hand with a pocket pair. These are all ‘after the flop’ odds for Texas Hold’em.

What are my chances of flopping a set when I have a pocket pair?

Well there are two cards out of the remaining 50 cards to give you a set and you have three chances to hit those cards. It works out to 11.76% chance of hitting your set or 88.24% chance that you won’t.

OK, same pocket pair; what are the chances I will flop a full house?

Two ways to do this, you flop one more for your set and another pair or the board flops three of a kind. The odds work out to 137 to 1 or about o.7%. Oh and by the way, you have a better chance of winning with your set and another pair because if the board is three of a kind then both a bigger pair and the quads beat you.

Speaking of quads. My chances of my pocket pair flopping quads?

Slim. Or exactly 0.245%, be sure to check it if you get it and maintain that poker face.

OK, back to reality. I have that pocket pair, what are my chances of making a set by the river?

Somewhat better. Remember you have seen 5 of your potential 7 cards after the flop and you had 11.76% odds of flopping the set. After seeing the turn and the river cards, your odds go up to 19% of having that set.

-This is Beginner’s Poker Blog Post #48

We know that poker is to some extend a game of mathematics. Since the odds associated with much of poker are fixed quantities, these are a few numbers you should commit to memory. It is enough to have a ‘close enough’ number you don’t need to go decimals.

Here are a few common ratios worth remembering.

Pre-Flop

What are the odds of getting pocket aces?

A single player has a 1 in 221 chance of being deal two aces or 220 to 1 against. (Just a little reminder, at a ten player table that means each player has a 220-1 chance or 22-1 that one player has AA.)

What are your odds of being dealt any pocket pair?

Much better odds here: 16 to 1 or 5.9%, but be careful, your getting a small pocket pair only slightly lowers the odds of 1 in 16 that someone else also has a (higher) pair.

(more…)

There is perhaps no better way to improve your game than to participate in a continuing poker discussion group. There are dozens on online poker forums where you can read a variety of opinions on various games, hands and strategies. You learn not just the ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ way to play a hand but more importantly the variety of options and opinions on various plays. You discover your own game and gain insight into all the other ways that people play this fascinating game of ours.

We, of course, recommend our own Poker Forum not only because it is ours but because it is all-poker all-the-time. No outside ads or nonsense gets in the way of pure poker discussion. Use the Beginner’s Forum or step right up to the Advanced Discussion. Also find topics such as: Tournament Poker, Online Poker, Poker on TV and specific forums for Texas Hold’em, Omaha and other games.

Come on in! The discussion is going on right now.

-This is Beginner’s Poker Blog Post #46

There is a saying in poker: “Never give your opponent a free card” or at least “You seldom want to give your opponent a free card.” Best we explain this with an example:

You raise pre-flop with Ad Kc and get two callers. The flop is Qh Js 10h. You just flopped a Broadway Straight (AKQJ10). What do you do now? Well if the Q or the 10 were not both hearts, then you might just want to slowplay this monster and see if you can win a bigger pot but if you check and the others players check then they could well be drawing to a heart flush for free! You would have given them a free card. What you want to do is charge them for that draw, in fact, you might want to charge them so much (assuming this is a no limit game) that it will not make sense odds-wise to call you looking for that third heart to hit the board.

So the rule is: Don’t give an opponent a chance to beat you for free. Bet and make them pay if they want to play for the draw that will top your winning hand.

There is a slightly more sophisticated play that you might want to add to your arsenal and that is betting on the flop to get a free card on the turn. Let’s say you are the one with the two hearts in your hand and someone bets that QJ10 flop, now usually they are not sitting on AK for the big straight; they are betting an AQ or perhaps two pair. So what do you do? Well if you are seated behind them, you raise. If they reraise then beware they might have the straight but if they just call your raise, you can be fairly sure they have top pair or perhaps two pair. Now the turn card comes and if it does not hit you, they may check fearing another raise from you and you have just bought yourself a free card. Why do this? Well in a limit game, say $5/$10 Hold’em, that raise on the flop was $5 but the bet on the river was $10. So by putting fear into your opponent, you bought a free card at the higher betting level.

Sometimes you don’t want to give a free card and other times you want to buy yourself one, if not free then at a deep discount.

-This is Beginner’s Poker Blog Post #45

When the board comes 9 7 3 and you have a couple of jacks in your hand, you have an overpair. Technically, you have an overpair to the board. If the board was 9 7 3 and you had J9 in your hand, you would have top pair but you would be worried that your opponent might have an overpair (AA, KK, QQ, JJ or 1010). You hate the overpair when they are “over” your pair, you loved them when they keep a player betting into you when you have a lower set (JJ vs. 333, for instance). The trouble with overpairs to the board is that you want to maximize your win by keeping the other players calling your bets but you also don’t want to give them free cards. A board of 9h 7s 3c is not threatening to your JJ but when the 8h hits the turn, you start to see visions of straights and flushes taking down your pair of Jacks.

The term “overcard” is similar to overpair. When the board hits 973, you might be ready to fire out a bet with your AQ, you have two big overcards but the AK sitting next to you is even in better shape. The overcard is often mention in a typically race situation: 55 versus AK, both the A and the K are overcards. But when you make your stand with A10s you only have one overcard and much less of a chance to win the race when you opponent shows JJ, QQ or KK because now your 10 is not an overcard and hitting a single 10 on the board does not win you the hand.

-This is Beginner’s Poker Blog Post #44