Poker Tips for Winners

Game Advice for Texas Hold'em Play good starting hands Do not enter the betting with any two cards! With ten players around the table, someone will have a better starting hand most of the time. When you enter the game with the second best hand, your opponent is a favorite to win the pot.

The importance of position In Texas Hold'em, your position remains the same throughout the entire hand. A player that acts after you will act after you all the way to the river. This is a great disadvantage for you. As a rule, play only very strong hands in early position. On the other hand, when you are in a late position, the advantage is yours to exploit.

Game Advice for Five Card Draw Choose your hands A common advice is to not open the betting with less than a high pair in your hand. And if someone else opens the pot, you need at least that to call.

Do not be an open book If you have a pair and draw three cards, the other players will know that you have a pair. If you always draw two cards when you have three of a kind, again your hand will be easy to read. The same goes if you never stand pat unless you have a made hand.

By varying the number of cards you draw, you keep your opponents guessing.

Game Advice for Omaha Four of a kind - an easy fold! In Omaha, picking up your four hole cards and seeing a monster hand is not that great, since you can only use two of them. If, for example, your hole cards are four kings, you do not have four of a kind! As a matter of fact, you cannot even make three of a kind, since no king can come on the board.

Or, if you have four hearts, your chances of making a flush are worse than if you had had only two hearts. If you have two hearts and two spades in your hand, your flush chances are even better.

So, do not be fooled when you look down at a fantastic hand in Omaha.

Big straight draws

After the flop in Texas Hold'em, a made hand (such as three of a kind) is usually the favorite against a drawing hand (such as four cards to a straight). In Omaha, this is not the case, since there are so many ways of making a really good hand. With these draws, you can put in a lot of bets.

For example, if you hold T-9-6-5 and the flop comes K-8-7, there are 20 cards that will make you a straight if they came on the turn or river: four fours, three fives, three sixes, three nines, three tens, and four jacks.

With Ah-Ks-Th-9s and a flop of Qh-Jh-3c, there are 22 cards that would make you either a straight or a flush. 16 cards would make you a straight: four eights, three nines, three tens, three kings, and three aces. The nine remaining hearts would give you a flush, but three of them have already been counted, since they also give you a straight: the 8h, 9h, and Kh.

In both these cases, you have equal or better chances than a player who made three of a kind on the flop.

Starting hands with connecting cards

With four cards, there are much more combinations than with two cards. Since all four cards can be combined with any of the other three cards, an Omaha hand is not like two Texas hands, it is like six. So, in Omaha, look out for hands where all four cards connect in some way.

Game Advice for Omaha Hi Lo Scoping You should always be on the look-out for a chance to win the whole pot - an activity called scoping. There are two ways to scope. Either, you have the best high hand and the best low hand. Or you have the best high hand and there is no low hand. If you aim at winning only the high or only the low part, the reward is only half as big.

Being quartered

Even if you have the best possible low hand, you can never be sure of winning even half the pot. It is always possible that another player has the same low hand, so that you will split the low part of the pot, that is, you will get only a quarter of the pot. This means that you get very bad odds for playing your hand. In fact, you may even lose money on the hand if you win only a quarter of the pot.

Of course, high hands sometimes also split the high half of the pot. But it is possible to hold a high hand of which you know that no other player can match it.

Game Advice for Seven Card Stud Starting hand requirements A strong starting hand consists of either a high pair, three of a kind, three cards to a flush or three cards to a straight.

Live cards

In seven card stud it is important to notice when other players get the cards you need.

Suppose, for example, that you are dealt three hearts. You would like to stay in the hand and draw to a flush, but if other players receive a lot of hearts, your chances of making the flush diminish.

Or if you have a pair of kings, your chances of hitting one of the remaining two kings almost vanish if you see one of them in the hand of another player.

Can you beat what you see?

If you cannot beat the part of a hand that is face up in front of a player, you certainly cannot beat that hand with the concealed cards included.

Scoping

As in Omaha Hi/Lo, trying to win the whole pot is important. You can do this is in two ways: Either by winning both the high and low sides, or by having the best high hand while there is no qualifying low hand.