The majority of hands that you will be dealt at the poker table will be good for one and only one move on your part. You will fold. Very tight players will fold 90% or more of the cards dealt to them. Loose-aggressive players will fold more than half of their hands. Don’t be fooled by edited television shows, even “play every hand players” don’t actually play every hand.

To fold means simply to discard your hand and give up any interest in the current pot. Folding may be indicated verbally and/or by discarding one’s hand face down into the pile of discards. In most houses, you must release your cards for your hand to be dead. In the U.S. it is customary to signal folding by turning all of one’s “up” cards face down in games like Stud. It is considered unsportsmanlike to do a “fast fold” if you are first to act in any round because every player has the right to see all exposed cards. In most card rooms in Europe, you slide your cards to the dealer who will be sure other players have had an equal opportunity to see your exposed cards and then the dealer will muck the hand.

It is a serious breach of etiquette to fold out of turn, that is, when it is not your turn to act, because this can provide information to players who should have acted before you. In some games, even folding in turn when a player is entitled to check (because there is no bet facing the player) is considered an out of turn fold since it gives away information to which other players would otherwise not be entitled. Checking out, as it is called, is considered bad form in many card rooms.

When you fold, your down or concealed cards should not be exposed unless no further betting is possible in the hand and the fold gives the pot to the only remaining player. A player is never required to expose his concealed cards when folding unless the hand has been checked down. At this point, local rules apply as to whether you must show your cards or whether you can surrender them face down and give up the pot.

-This is Beginner’s Poker Blog Post #82

“If a hand isn’t good enough to raise with, then you should fold it.”

Now you have heard it said the correct answer to any poker question is: “It Depends!” Well then it is also true that all poker wisdom that come in wise sounding sentences like that one above, well those are true only some of the time. But in this case there is a very good moral to be learned from the idea of raising or folding.

You see new players often get caught playing inferior hands because they just call the opening bet or the big blind. Or they call and get raised and are now playing an marginal hand for two or even three bets. If you stick to the raise or fold rule, you will only play premium hands.

Now we all know, or we should know, that you will not be a long-term winning player if you stick exclusively to AA, KK, QQ and AK. You must learn to play other hands and play in position and learn to bluff etc. etc. etc. But the mantra of Raise or Fold! has a lot to say about playing before the flop.

You see if you are willing to raise, you send a strong message to your potential opponents and, of course, in no limit games you can chose just how big that message is going to be. When the blinds are 25/50, an opening raise to 500 says something very different than a raise to 100.

But the moral of Raise or Fold is not to be crazy with your raising, no the moral is that if you going to play a hand, be prepared to make a statement with your chips. Only you get to see your hole cards but everyone gets to see your chips hit the table. Raise! delivers your message louder than call. You are going to fold a lot anyway, so no one will ever know how good, bad or marginal the cards are that you fold but they will see and hear how strong you are when you say Raise!

-This is Beginner’s Poker Blog Post #81

To raise is to increase the size of the bet required to stay in the pot, forcing all subsequent players to call the new amount or get out of the hand. A raise is the second bet in any round (also the third, fourth, fifth etc.). If you are making the first bet of a round that is consider to be the opening bet and not a raise. Some we have an opening bet and then a raise. If more raises are made in this same round, those are called a re-raise.

In a limit game, the size of the raises are set. For instance in a 5/10 Hold’em game, each bet or raise pre-flop and post-flop are 5 chips. After the turn and the river the bet limit increases to 10 chips. In no limit games, the obvious limit is all the chips you have in front of you; the minimum raise is the amount of the last bet.

Be careful in determining a raise in no limit. If the big blind is 100 and a player bets 500, the raise was 400. The next player to raise has to bet at least 900, which is the last bet of 500 plus 400, which was the amount of the last raise. Obviously, in no limit the bet could be more than 900. Another exception is that you can always bet what you have in front of you, even if it is less than the required raise. The rule in no limit is that you can always bet what you have left, no matter how big or how small.

Many card rooms cap the total number of raises allowed in a single betting round in their limit games. This is usually expressed as a total number of bets per round; four or five is standard. So if you are in a 5/10 game in a five bet room, you know that in the 5 chip rounds the max. bet will be 25 (the opening bet plus four raises for a total of five bets). The dealer will announce” “The betting is capped” at that point and all players still in the hand may call or fold. It is very common to suspend this rule when there are only two players left in the hand, since either player can stop the betting at any time by simply calling and not raising.

FYI, both no limit and pot limit games do not cap the betting or raising; you bet until everyone calls or folds (or are all in).

-This is Beginner’s Poker Blog Post #80

Another player bets out on a hand. It doesn’t matter for our purposes whether they are betting pre-flop or on the river. It doesn’t matter if they are betting on third street in a Stud game or post-flop in Omaha. We are concerned with what happens next. What do you do when facing a raise?

Let’s eliminate fold from our options, you have a playable hand and are not going to lay it down. Your choices are to call or raise. To stay in the hand you simply have to call, but what does a call signify to the player or players in the hand? If the opening bettor was hoping to drive you out, then your call is not going to make them too comfortable with their hand. If they were betting a good hand, they are happy to have to add chips to what they believe will be their pot. If you raise the pot, you are telling the bettor that not only are you not afraid of their hand but you have a hand strong enough to take them on right now. You send a strong message with your raise.

The purpose of raising a bet is to send a message. Now there are several messages and the texture of the table and the game will make those possibilities nearly endless. No matter what has happened before at this table, a raise is a much stronger play than a call; unless, of course, you have a monster hand and the call is just the beginning of a huge trap you are setting.

Now let’s stop thinking about the original bettor, who you are deciding to call or raise; let’s turn our attention to players behind you still to act in this betting round. If you only call, you provide them with more not less incentive to call too. Suppose the pot is 200 and the first player has bet another 100; if you call, the pot becomes 400 (200 + 100 + 100) and the next player in the hand only needs to call 100 to play for the 400 in the pot. A lot of hands look good getting 4 to 1 odds.

If, however, you had made even a minimum raise from 100 to 200, now the pot is at 500, to call the next player will have to put in 200 to win 500. The odds are down to 2.5 to 1 and a lot fewer hands make sense to play for those odds.

A raise not only sends a message, it also changes the odds for all players still in the hand. The message can be mixed: strong hand? bluff? drawing hand? slow play? But the math and the odds are fixed. A raise forces the other players to consider the message(s) but to make decisions based on the odds of committing more chips to the pot. Compared to a raise, the call is a quiet move with less information.

Call or Raise, the choice is yours but consider what the other players will think about your decision. And consider joining a discussion in our poker forum on the topic of calling or raising.

-This is Beginner’s Poker Blog Post #79

To call is to match a prior bet. Calling is different from checking because when you call you are putting chips into the pot. More than that, you are calling someone who has made a bet, you are perhaps even calling more than one player. A call signifies that you wish to remain in the hand but your are not prepared to raise the current bet.

A betting round ends when all active players have bet an equal amount meaning someone has to call, a betting round cannot end on a raise. If no opponents call a player’s bet or raise, the player wins the pot.

The second and subsequent calls of a particular bet amount are sometimes referred to as an overcall. So if four players end a betting round in which only one bet was made; then we had a bet, a call and two overcalls. There is no practical difference in a call and an overcall but their are implications to be drawn as more players call to remain in a hand.

A player calling a bet or a raise as their first action in a round is said to be cold calling. So if seat one checks and seat two bets, a call by seat three would be a cold call. A further call by seat one might also be called a cold call or a check-call. You will also hear “cold calling two bets” or “calls three bets cold.” This simply means that a player chooses only to call and not to raise. A player calling instead of raising is also said to be smooth calling. The problem with making a cold call or a smooth call is that it looks like you either have a big hand or a drawing to a big hand and it is unlikely that you will get action later in the hand if you raise, unless your opponent has you beat.

Remember that a call is a call and you cannot raise after either saying “call” or putting the correct amount of chips to call into the pot. In many card rooms in the past you might say: “I see your bet” meaning that you are calling. Today, however, most card rooms expect only the word call or the correct amount of chips in your hand to signify you are matching the previous bet as opposed to folding or raising.

-This is Beginner’s Poker Blog Post #78

If no one has yet opened the betting round, a player may check, which is equivalent to calling the current bet of zero. After the cards are dealt in Hold’em the first player after the blinds does not have the option to check because the blinds are forced bets already in the pot. So in a game with $1/$2 blinds, you must call the $2 Big Blind, raise or fold. In games with no “forced bet” or blind you may check the opening round. In Hold’em and Omaha rounds after the flop, turn and river; a player may check or bet. When checking, a player declines making a bet; indicating that he does not choose to open this betting round, but that he wishes to keep his cards and retain the right to call or raise later in the same round if an opponent opens.

Remember in games played with blinds, players may not check on the opening round because they must either match (or raise) the big blind or fold. However, the player with a live big blind who chooses not to exercise his right to raise is said to check his option. Of course, if another player has raised first, the big blind must fold, call the raise or reraise.

If all players check and no one bets, the betting round is over. This is called checking it around. Often players in late position will raise a checked pot sensing that the checks in front of them signal weakness but beware! Players will check to show weakness when they are playing a strong hand; they are setting a trap for the aggressive players behind them.

A common way to signify checking is to tap the table with a fist or an open hand. Again, be careful with your hand signals when it is your turn to act, any action of patting or tapping the table might be considered a check by the dealer.

Another term you might hear at the table is check out. Generally when you check you remain in the hand and will see the next card, unless another player makes a bet. But there are times when a player has a hand so bad that they do not want to continue in the hand even for free. In this case the player simply tosses their hand away and rather than just call this action a fold, it is referred to as checking out.

-This is Beginner’s Poker Blog Post #77

It is your turn to act. Are you going to check or bet? There is a lot more to consider in making this decision then simply what hand you hold. There is an old saying in poker: “Fold more than you raise, raise more than you call.”

The first part of that advice is easy to understand. Most hands you are dealt are not playable, the most common action a poker player takes is to fold. But the second piece of advice is tricky. The suggestion is that when you do enter a pot, you should be entering for a raise and not a call. In fact, another common poker saying is: “If a hand is worth playing, it is worth raising.”

Sure there are times when you will check and there are certainly situations where you will call but the point is that when you raise you do something a call or check will never do. When you raise, you force any other player in the hand to make a decision. When you check, they can check. When you call, they can call or if they made the original bet, we all get to see the next card.

When you raise, the other players now must make a decision and one potential decision is to fold. Your opponents can’t quit the hand with a fold unless you give them that opportunity with a raise. There is also the intimidation factor of a raise, you might well raise again when the next card comes out, you might already have a made hand or you just might be bluffing but no matter what; it is going to cost them chips to find out.

Betting is always a stronger move, even when your hand is weak. So get out there and put that raise into the pot and do it with strength. Oh, by the way, I check.

-This is Beginner’s Poker Blog Post #76

You might hear a gambler say: “I need some action.” A fairly common expression about “players” of all kinds. But when you hear the word action used at a poker table it has a couple of different meanings.

Whenever a player bets, checks, raises or folds their hand, it is said that there has been action. It does not mater if a player checks, bets or folds. As long as they have acted. There are several reasons this is important. First, a player should not act on their hand until all action in front of them is complete, which is another way of saying that you should not act out of turn. Secondly, your action may be dependent on action in front of you. If you say “raise” and a player before you has not acted, you may be required to raise no matter what their action.

Action also changes what rules may be in force. For instance, if the pot is not right and a player wants to object, they may be prevented from doing so if “action” has taken place in the next round of betting. Suppose the pot was 500 and a player says I bet the pot and then another players says: “The pot is not right it should be 600.” Too late, “action” has taken place. Certain floor decisions are governed by whether or not action has taken place. The very general rule is that action moves the hand and the application of the rules to the present situation and going back is not always going to be allowed, even to correct an obvious error.

Another use of the term is “following the action”, which simply means that you, other players and in particular, the dealer keeps track of what has happened in a hand by paying close attention to the action of all the players. By following the action, you pick up on the tendencies and tells of your opponents.

Another phrase you will hear often, when it is your turn, it is said that: “the action is on you.” Or it is your turn to act.

Finally and perhaps most importantly, action describes the position of players in a hand. “First to act” being a very different strategic position from “last to act”. And, of course, it all goes back to playing a little poker and “getting some action”.

-This is Beginner’s Poker Blog Post #75

You have just won a pot without a showdown. Your bet on the river got your opponent to fold. Should you show your cards?

The answer most of the time is a resounding NO! You don’t want to give your opponent any free information about your play; you want them to wonder if they made the right play. However, there are a couple of reasons you might want to show your hand.

You might want to show a bluff, if your table image is very tight. Sometimes it will pay later when you have a big hand but only if your opponents actually think you are capable of bluffing. Also showing a bluff can sometimes tilt your opponent into making bad plays against you.

On the other side of the coin, showing a monster hand will sometimes keep a weak player from coming after your later when you are bluffing. The sight of that huge full boat will make them feel good about their fold but they will also remember it next time they are trying to make a decision about calling you down on a later hand. “Man, the last time we were in this situation, he had a full house….”

Also, showing a hand can change your image. Suppose you have been raising every single time you come into a pot. Finally, you limp in one hand and when you bet on the flop everyone folds. You might want to show that hand to give a false signal of the type of hand you might limp with. Just remember next time you get that hand, you need to raise. Don’t give false information unless it really is false.

However, the bottomline answer is that most of the time you should not show your cards, if you don’t have to. Make them pay to see how you play.

-This is Beginner’s Poker Blog Post #74

When you have “the nuts” you are holding the best hand possible. In flop games that means when you consider all the possible hands using the community cards, you are the stone cold, no chance for anyone else, absolute winner. Players will often say “the nuts” or “I got the nuts” when they roll over their hands.

If a Hold’em board was AcQh9s7hJd, then the best possible hand is a ace high straight and you would have “the nuts” if your down cards were K10. Now in this case it is possible that two or more player have the best hand with different combinations of K10. But change one suit on that board and you change the nuts. Make that Jd into the Jh and now the nuts would be any hand with the ace of hearts and another heart. The ace high heart flush would be “the nuts” and beat out the ace high straight. You will often hear the highest possible flush referred to as the “nut flush”. Same with the highest straight being the “nut straight”.

Be careful when playing to a “nut flush” or a nut flush draw. If the board is 7h8hKh, then two hearts in your hand makes a flush and two hearts including the ace makes the “nut flush”. But suppose the board finishes 7h8hKh-2c9h; while your ace high flush is still a good hand, it is no longer the “nut flush” because 5h6h, 6h10h and 10hJh all make straight flushes which would be the winning “nut flush”.

“The Nuts” is, of course, a monster hand and should be played to maximize your potential winnings. Often players will slowdown when they hit “the nuts” and try to give their opponents a chance to make some kind of a hand, otherwise “the nuts” may not make you any money and you will be saying: “Ah Nuts!”

-This is Beginner’s Poker Blog Post #73