Texas Holdem is by far the most popular poker game in the world today and is played by millions of people every single day in casinos and online poker rooms such as UB.com. Everyday there are new players joining the game and therefore you’re even if you’re new you’re not going to be alone. When you first start playing Holdem you’ll most likely play on the low limit tables where you’ll be playing against a lot of other beginner players.
Since you’ll be playing against beginner players you’ll have the chance to make money off of their mistakes. You will need to know how to spot your opponents weaknesses, but we’re going to look at that right now. Most beginner poker players will either try being the aggressor on the table or the tightest player on the table depending on the person. Some new players don’t mind gambling and therefore play a lot more questionable hands whereas tighter players will sit and wait for their hands.
Both of the above playing styles are fine as long as you know what you’re doing. Personally if you’re a beginner player you should try leaning towards the tight playing style. When you start getting mixed up in all sorts of hands it can not only cost you a lot of money, but you’ll also be developing bad habits which are hard to break. As a beginner you should try and identify the players that are playing aggressive. One thing that aggressive players don’t like is when you raise or re-raise them in a pot. A lot of the time they’ll fold because they have nothing although they may call you just to find out how you react. If you do get called by an aggressive player after raising them you need to fire a follow up bet on the flop even if you don’t hit.
Texas Holdem isn’t always about the cards you’re holding, you also need to play your opponents. If you’re paying attention to your poker game you should have an idea of how certain players will act before they even move. Once you start picking up on your opponent’s game you’ll be able to use the information to exploit them. Playing against tight players is really simple. When they’re in the hand they most likely have a pocket pair or high suited cards. If you’re in the hand and the flop is all low/middle cards you can most likely take the pot away from your opponent with a bet. Most tight players don’t mind folding small pots since their goal is to win 1-2 big pots throughout their session.
One beginner mistake that you want to avoid is over betting your hands as a beginner. If the pot is $20 and you come out firing a $50 bet then nobody is going to call you unless they have a really huge hand. When you hit hands you need to bet for value to draw the most amount of money out of them. You need to think to yourself about how much you would call in the pot given the current circumstances. Of course will flush and straight draws on the board you need to bet a bit more to try and scare off the draws, but remember not to go crazy.
One of the most common ways to build your bankroll if you’re a new poker player is through earning online poker bonuses from the many different poker rooms. This type of strategy for building your bankroll is often referred to as “Bonus Whoring” and is frowned upon by online poker rooms. The reason why poker rooms give their players sign-up bonuses is because they want them to remain loyal to their room. The last thing that the poker room wants is you to earn your bonus and withdraw your money from the poker room.
Thousands of players earn their bankrolls from doing this, but it has become a bit more difficult over the years. Nowadays poker rooms have put in some safety measures which ensures you need to earn your bonus from the room before you’ll be credited with it. In order to earn the poker bonuses from the various poker rooms you’re going to need to play poker in the room. Most poker rooms have a points system where you’ll earn player points for playing in the poker room. Once you earn a pre-determined amount of point’s part of your bonus will be released and this continues until you’ve earned your entire bonus.
The first thing that you need to look for when signing up for a poker room is the sign-up rules. It’s important that you find out how many player points you need to earn in order to receive the bonus. You should also find out if there is going to be a deadline on how long you have to earn it. This isn’t that big of a problem though because most poker rooms will give you 90-180 days to earn your bonus. If the amount of player points that you need to earn is reasonable for the amount of bonus money you’ll receive then you can sign-up for the poker room.
If you want to earn the sign-up bonus as quickly as possible so you can move onto the next poker room you should learn how to multi-table. The best way to earn bonuses is by multi-tabling the low limit cash game tables. As long as you break even while playing you’re still going to walk away with the profit of your sign-up bonus which can range from $100-$1000+ depending on the poker room and the size of your deposit. On the low limit tables most of the players will have really small stacks and breaking even isn’t that hard since you can easily steal pots with some bigger sized bets. Alternatively you could sit and play tight on a bunch of tables and only play the best hands you get dealt. This is the safer route since you should win a large percentage of the hands and you’ll earn points fast since you’re playing on so many tables.
You can easily earn a few grand from online poker bonuses in a short amount of time if you’re smart about how you do things. If you try making too much money while earning your points by playing higher limit games you risk going broke and therefore not earning the full amount of your bonus.
One of the newest online poker tournaments available to players in certain poker rooms are double-up tournaments. The most common type of double-up poker tournament is played with 10 players and the top 5 players win. In this type of tournament you double your money up if you finish in the top 5 positions. In order to win a nice amount of money from double-up tournaments you need to be able to win a high percentage of them. I’m going to share some simple yet practical tips with you now that will assist you in winning these types of tournaments.
* The number one rule that you need to follow if you decide to play in double-up tournaments at your favorite poker site is that you need to play tight poker the entire tournament. The only time you should open up your game is if you’re in last place and you need a double-up badly due to the blinds. Most of your opponents will also be playing tight poker which means most hands will be all-in type of hands before the flop even hits the board. A lot of the eliminations that you see will be because two monster hands went up against each other. If you lose on a cooler hand you can’t do anything about it and you just need to move forward as this will happen.
* When you have a big hand you need to always raise the pot because you don’t want anyone to be able to limp into the pot with you. If you don’t get any action that’s alright, because it’s much better to win the blinds then lose a big hand because you let the big blind have a free ride to the flop. By raising the pot with your big hands you’ll also be able to find out what type of table image you have. If nobody calls your raise then you should wait a few hands and try raising the same amount again with a marginal hand. In most cases you’ll be able to take down the blinds and add to your stack and worst case you can just fold to a re-raise.
* As you reach the bubble in the tournament and there are 6-7 players left, most of the action will begin to slow down. Everyone will want to wait it out so that they don’t end up getting knocked out on the bubble. During this time of the tournament you don’t want to do anything crazy if you’re in the top three positions. If you’re on the bubble in the tournament then you might want to try raising a few pots to see if you can take down the blinds. You can’t just sit there and do nothing generally when you’re on the bubble as that’s usually the person that ends up being eliminated.
* If you knock out a player early in the tournament with a good hand and you’re sitting with 3K chips you can basically sitout. You only need to take out one person in order to guarantee a spot in the top 5 although you will need to maintain your stack. If you’re lucky enough to have won an all-in then all you need to do the entire tournament is wait for a couple decent hands that you don’t mind going all-in with so that you can steal the blinds. Generally nobody will call your raise if you’re the leader in the tournament unless they have a really good hand. If somebody does re-raise all-in you’ll need to determine the pot odds and if the risk is worth the reward.
In order to win a double-up tournament all you need to do is play strategic poker and don’t do anything crazy. If you constantly bluff and raise pots then you probably won’t do well in these tournaments. You need to be patient, but at the same time you need to know when you’re in a good position to steal the blinds or take down a small pot.
When you first start playing poker you should always start out at the low limit tables. It doesn’t matter if you play cash games or tournaments, you should always start on one of the lowest staked games. The unique thing about playing online poker is that you can find cash games starting at $.01/$.02 and going all the way up to $100/$200+. You will also find that poker tournaments have a wide variety of stakes starting with tournaments priced at roughly $1. You don’t need to start on the lowest limit poker tables, but you shouldn’t exceed the $1/$2 limits in cash games and $5-$10 tournaments.
Once you find a low limit game that you’re comfortable with playing on FullTilt, you should stick with it until you’ve accumulated a good amount of data on your stats. If you want to become a better poker player then you need to constantly analyze your stats to find your weaknesses and strengths. When you’re actually playing the game you’re constantly thinking about a hundred different things and often a lot of stuff won’t sink in right away. If you spend the time to look over your stats and hand histories you’ll be able to improve upon your game at a much better rate. The best poker players in the world spend hours every day going over hand data and that’s what makes them the best.
After you’ve played thousands of hands you’ll have a good idea about how well you’ve been doing and whether or not you’re ready to move up. The players that win a couple thousand bucks and start moving up the limits instantly are the ones that end up broke and back at the $1/$2 games. The last thing that you want to do is go broke and stuck rebuilding your bankroll because you moved up limits to fast. It’s a lot better if you end up moving up limits slower then you’re supposed too.
When you feel that you’re ready to move up limits the most important thing to look at is how profitable you’ve been on a regular basis. If you’ve played for six months at a certain limit and you’ve only posted profits for two of those months then you’re probably not ready to move up limits. Even if you’ve won $5K from the two months of profit you’ll end up losing it if you move up limits. You need to be posting profits on a month to month basis before you move up limits. Once you move up in the poker tournament limits you should make sure that you’re still posting the same stats as you were at the lower limit games. A lot of the time players move up limits and start doing a lot worse. If you compare your stats and notice that you’re doing significantly worse then you should just move back down limits until you’re ready to try moving up again.
The most important thing that you need to remember when moving up limits is that you really need to be hungry for moving up to the next level. If you’re second guessing yourself or scared about losing your bankroll then you’re not going to be playing your best poker and it will usually result in losing money rather then winning money.