Once you’ve grown comfortable with your basic ability to get into pots with decent cards, you’ll need to open up your starting hand selection a little bit in order to most efficiently take advantage of the game.  Expanded your hand selection can be easily accomplished if looked at in terms of your positioning at the time.  In early position (especially first position), you’ll want to stick to decently premium cards, this way you don’t get caught facing a late position raise and not knowing what to do.

With middle and late positions however, you can start to widen your starting hands a bit if the pot hasn’t been raised and if you know a little about the opponents that are still left to act.  If you’re confident that they will only raise with legitimate hands, then you can try to sneak into seeing a cheap flop with more mediocre combinations.

Use this list I’ve included here as a guide you can follow if you want to try adding some new hands to your repertoire, based on your position at the table.  By no means apply this to each and every hand, as the size of the pot and characteristics of your opponents will play a major role as to when you can open up your play a little.

Early Position
High Pairs: Ace-Ace, King-King, Queen-Queen, Jack-Jack
High Suited Cards: Ace-King, Ace-Queen, King-Queen, Ace-Jack, King-Jack, Queen-Jack, Jack-10
High Unsuited Cards: Ace-King, Ace-Queen, King-Queen

Middle Position – All of the above, plus:
High Suited Cards: Ace-10, King-10, Queen-10
High Unsuited Cards: Ace-Jack, Ace-10, King-Jack, etc
Middle Pairs: 10-10, 9-9, 8-8

Late Position – All of the above, plus:
Suited connectors, such as 9-10, 7-8, etc.
Small pairs all the way down to 2s
Ace-littles: A-8, A-6

On every poker training website you’ll see countless forms of the top starting hands for Texas Hold ‘Em.  While knowing these hands is a must for any serious poker player, knowing the absolute worst starting hands will ensure that you avoid these card combinations like the plague.  In almost no situation should you be playing these hands, especially if facing a raise.

1.  2-7
2.  2-8
3.  3-8 and 3-7 (Tie)
4.  2-6
5.  2-9, 3-9 & 4-9 (Tie)
6.  2-10
7.  5-9
8.  4-7, 4-8, 5-8, 3-6 (Tie)
9.  Face card + low card, unsuited
10.  Ace + low card, unsuited

A common misconception with beginning poker players is that they believe they can consistently post winning sessions from the start of their careers.  Considering that most new players don’t even have a basic concept of odds, hand strength or tells, this is highly unlikely, yet losing immediately and often when they first start playing is what heavily discourages beginners from sticking with poker and getting better.

If this sounds like you, you need to understand that almost literally every poker player started off as a losing poker player, sometimes for months or even years.  It takes a lot of time to learn how to read a table, size up an opponent, know how much to bet and when, the kind of strategy and tactics that can only be learned in the long run.  Even if you read every poker book on the planet, there’s still a huge difference between having the information in your head and actually calling upon it during a game.

My advice is to drop down to the lowest stakes you can find, this will minimize your total losses while still giving you a competitive environment to improve your skills.  Go into each game with the mindset that you are going to try to learn something new.  If you just play to play, you’re never going to get any better.  Set a goal for yourself, such as adopting the discipline to only play the top 10 starting hands on, or maybe trying to execute a few bluffs.  Take mental or even written notes of what worked and what didn’t.

You may continue to lose consistently in the short run, but you will definitely start to notice an improvement on your skills.  In poker, you need to be willing to lose a little in order to win a little, and then win a lot.  Play at a limit that won’t cripple your bankroll, and move up accordingly as you poker game gets stronger.

The following ten poker terms are something every poker player should know, regardless of experience.  They’ll help keep you informed of what’s going on at the table and prevent you from looking like a rookie player to the others in the game.

1.  All-In:  When either you or another player pushes his last remaining chips into a pot.

2.  Heads-Up:  When just two players are left in any given hand.

3.  Bad Beat:  When someone loses a hand when they were a huge favorite to win, such as when you have pocket aces and are defeated by pocket deuces.
4.  Blinds:  The blinds are the mandatory bets that must be placed into a pot before a round can begin.  Most Texas Hold’em games use a two blind system, called the Big Blind and the Small Blind.  If you’re seated at a $4-$8 Hold’em game, the big blind puts out $8 while the small blind puts out $4.  The positioning of the big/small blind changes every hand.

5.  The Flop:  The flop is the first three community cards dealt by the dealer.  In a game of Texas Hold Em, there are five community cards total.

6.  The Turn:  The turn is the fourth community card dealt, also known as Fourth Street.

7.  The River:  The river is the fifth community card dealt, also known as Fifth Street.

8.  Kicker:  The kicker is your tie-breaking card in reference to hand strength.  For example, if you have a Ace with a King and your opponent has a Ace with a Queen, your King kicker is stronger than his Queen kicker if a Ace comes on the flop, turn or river.

9.  Limp:  Limping into a pot is when you simply call the big blind without making a raise.

10.  The Board:  The board is the word used to describe where the dealer lays out all the community cards, essentially just the middle part of the card table.

This might seem like an overly basic lesson, but you would be surprised at just how many people still have doubts when it comes to “what beats what” at the poker table.  I’ve seen players argue that their four of a kind trumps a straight flush and some who believe that a full house beats practically anything.  All of this is Basic Poker 101, but in case you need a little refresher course, here are the ranks of all the winning poker hands, along with their definitions, listed from best to worse.

Royal Flush:  A ten to ace straight (Ten, Jack, Queen, King, Ace) where all five cards are of the same suit, such as all hearts or all clubs.

Straight Flush:  Any straight where all five cards are of the same suit.

Four of a Kind:  Any four cards of the same rank, such as four aces or four queens.

Full House:  A combination of three cards of the same rank and a different two cards of the same rank.  For example, three aces and two nine’s are a full house.

Flush:  Any five cards of the same suit, with the highest card determining the rank of the flush.

Straight:  Any five consecutive cards (Example:  Jack, ten, nine, eight, seven).

Three of a Kind:  Any three kinds of the same rank.

Two Pair:  A combination of two same ranked cards combined with a different set of two same ranked cards.  The highest pair of the two determines the rank of the hand.

One Pair:  Any two cards of the same rank.

High Card:  Any hand where no pair, straight or flush applies.

Wanting to wait until you grab a monster pocket pair like AA or KK preflop is a phase that lots of beginning players go through when they first start playing.  The reason being, is that they aren’t confident enough in their skills to be able to comfortably play a average hand on the flop, turn or river and win, so they rather sit back and wait for the best starting hands to come along and try to do their damage then.

The problems with this concept are many.  First of all, if you’re going to stick to a strategy that involves playing only aces, kings, AK and maybe QQ, you’re going to be waiting forever to catch these hands.  The odds of being dealt pocket aces are 200-1, so if you factor that a average of 30 hands are dealt per hour in a live card room, you’ll be waiting about seven hours to pick up your rockets.  With AK, the odds are cut in half to 110-1, but getting AK suited rises that equation to 331-1.  So no matter what, you’ll be burning at least a few hour’s worth of blinds if you keep yourself locked in to playing that way.

The second problem with this strategy is that it makes you unbelievably easy to read to your opponents.  If you sit at the same table for more than 3 hours and only come in or raise once in that time period, you’re more than likely going to see everyone fold, because they’ll know you’re holding a monster hand.  Now your moment of opportunity is wasted and you’ll again be waiting for a long time to see those aces again.

I understand why you might not want to expand your range of hands in the beginning, but this is why you need to play in games and limits that your completely comfortable in.  If you have to worry about the amount of money your losing during the training stages of your beginning poker hobby, you are playing at too high a limit.  Jump online and drop down to the micro-limit tables and you’ll be able to add confidence to your game without putting more than a few dollars at risk.

There is an ongoing debate amongst poker players as to just how much of your physical appearance plays a role in how your opponents perceive you as a poker player.  Of course at the higher echelon of the game, this doesn’t matter at all because the great players will rely on how you play your hand rather than your wardrobe when deciding how to play against you.  However, for a average smaller limit cash game or tournament, I do feel that there are some necessary do’s and don’ts when it comes to what you should wear.

Do’s

Unless you want to completely mess with your opponents heads and give off a very weak appearance so that you can convince them that you’re a fish when in reality you’re a shark, you’ll want to dress in a way that will convey strength and confidence.  Someone who looks like he knows what he’s doing will often get more respect for his hand strength than someone that looks like they stepped off the tour bus.  And confident clothes doesn’t have to mean expensive either.  There’s hardly any need for a suit or a fancy dress shirt when playing poker.  Instead, go for a casual style that fits your age demographic.  For younger players, a hoodie goes well with what many players think of when they think about young, aggressive players they see on TV.  Top off your hoodie with a hat from the local card room gift shop, a single iPod earbud in your ear and maybe a pair of basic, dark sunglasses, and you’ll be looking like the local pro.  Less experienced players will hesitate to get involved in hands with you, and in general you will have a better chance at succeeding with aggressive play.

Don’ts

The biggest mistake you can make is to go overboard.  Only guys like Phil Hellmuth can get away with wearing poker jerseys with his name on the back.  If you wear that into your local card room, it’ll scream “wannabe” and “pretender” to everyone at the table.  Likewise, you don’t want to be wearing more than one item of clothing from the same poker company.  A great sports quote is “Unless you’re sponsored by Nike, you should never be wearing more than one piece of Nike apparel at any given time”.  Translated into poker terms, don’t sit down in head to toe Party Party gear.  You’ll spend all night answering questions from players asking if you’re a pro, or if you get paid to play on the site, and if you choose to tell the truth, you’ll just look like a newbie.

The best possible solution?  Learn who the most experienced, successful players at your local card room are and see if their look matches their reputation.  As usual, you want to give yourself every edge possible every time you sit down at the table, so take some time and come up with a look and style that’ll help put you into “ready” mode whenever you head out to play.

There seems to be a lot of new players out there that think that by signing up for a online poker site and playing a bunch of play/fake money poker, they can make substantial improvements to their game.  I feel this is a huge misconception.  There are ways you can use the fake money tables to rough out some of the edges of your poker ability, but it can only take you so far, and you need to understand the differences between playing with real money versus the alternative.

For those looking to just learn the game of poker, these play money tables are a good way to discover the basic fundamentals of the game, such as how the blinds/antes work, how the flow of a session plays out, as well as getting an idea on how to play certain hands.  If you’re using the play money rooms for these purposes, you’re doing it correctly.  Once you get the regular hang of the game however, it’s now time to make the move over the real money tables.

Why?  It’s simple.  At the fake money games, the players are playing like their chips are valueless, which they in fact are.  They’ll call and raise with any two cards, chase a 4% draw again and again, and move all-in with bottom pair when there’s a potential royal flush on the board.  The point is, you can’t learn anything about how to correctly play poker from players that aren’t playing anywhere near realistically.  They can’t be bluffed, they’ll always call (or raise), and you’ll be left wondering if poker is really this silly.

Instead, switch over to the real money tables and hit up the micro-limits.  These games can be really small, even to the point where you’ll be calling and betting with pennies, but when there’s real money on the line, the players will always play a lot more truthfully than before.  Once you work your way up to the higher threshold’s of the low-limit games, you’ll be experiencing the same poker that the vast majority of players do, therefore you can now experiment and find your own personal playing style.