Getting to Know Hold’em in General
While Hold’em is exciting, exhilarating, and enjoyable, you should know something before diving in and plunking your money down — even if Hold’em is the lowest-limit game in the house. This section offers a few of those somethings we wish we had known when first making the transition from Seven-Card Stud to Texas Hold’em.
Hold’em only looks like Stud; it plays differently
With a total of seven cards, some of which are turned face-up and others down, Hold’em bears a resemblance to Seven-Card Stud. But this furtive similarity is only a “tastes like chicken” analogy.
One major difference is that 71 percent of your hand is defined on the flop. As a result, your best values in Hold’em are found up front; you get to see 71 percent of your hand for a single round of betting.
Staying for the turn and river demands that you either have a strong hand, a draw to a potentially winning hand, or good reason to believe that betting on a future round may cause your opponents to fold. Because there are only two additional cards dealt after the flop, along with the fact that the five communal cards play in everyone’s hand, there are fewer draw-outs in Hold’em than Stud. (A draw-out happens when you draw cards that make your hand better than your opponent’s.)
Also, because Hold’em uses exposed communal cards in the center of the table that combine with two hidden cards in each player’s hand to form the best Poker hand, it’s more difficult for an opponent to draw-out on you than in Stud Poker. For example, if you were dealt a pair of jacks and your opponent held a pair of 9s, the presence of a pair of 5s among the communal cards gives each of you two pair. But you still have the best hand. Unless one of those 5s helped an opponent complete a straight, the only player helped by that pair of 5s would be an opponent fortunate enough to have another 5 in his hand.
The first two cards are critical
You’ll frequently hear players say that any two cards can win. Although that’s true as far as it goes, it doesn’t go far enough. The whole truth is this: Although any two cards can win, they won’t win enough to warrant playing them. Like all forms of Poker, you need starting standards. Players who lack starting standards take the worst of it far too often. See Book 2, Chapter 1 for more detail about starting standards.
Position, position, and position
There’s an old real estate bromide that says the three most important features of any property are location, location, and location. In Hold’em, the important features are position, position, and position. Where your place is at the table (your position) is so important that some two-card holdings, which can’t be played profitably from early position, are cards you might raise with when you’re last to act.
In a typical nine-handed game, early position includes both blinds and the two players to their left. The fifth, sixth, and seventh players to act are in middle position, and the eighth and ninth players are in late position. (Find more details about position, including the hands you should play in a particular position, in Book 3, Chapter 2.)
Because house dealers deal casino games, a small disk — called a puck, a buck, or, most commonly, a button — is used as a marker to indicate the player in the dealer position. That player is always last to act. The button rotates clockwise around the table with each hand that’s dealt. The expression “passing the buck” does not refer to dollar bills, but to Poker. And President Harry S. Truman, an avid Poker player himself, had a sign on his desk in the White House that read, “The buck stops here.”
The flop should fit your hand
No matter how sweet your first two cards may appear, an unfavorable flop can render them nearly worthless. A key concept is that the flop must fit your hand. We call this concept “fit or fold.” If the flop doesn’t strengthen your hand or offer a draw to a very strong hand, you should usually release it. (Book 3, Chapter 4 goes into more detail about playing the flop.)
Suppose you called on the first round of betting with A♦ J♦, and the flop is Q♦ 5♦ 3♠. You don’t have a strong hand at this point. What you do have, however, is a hand with extremely strong potential. If another diamond falls on the turn or the river, you’ll make a flush. Not any flush, mind you, but the best possible flush, since your ace precludes any of your opponents from making a higher one.
Even if you don’t make a flush but were to catch a jack or an ace instead, that may be enough to win the pot.
Beyond the flop
As a general rule, you shouldn’t continue beyond the flop without a strong pair and a decent side-card (or kicker), or a straight or flush draw with at least two opponents to ensure that the pot is big enough to make it worthwhile.
Because of the communal cards, players frequently have the same hand, with the exception of their unpaired side card, or kicker. When that happens, it’s the rank of each player’s kicker that determines who wins the pot in question. That’s why most Hold’em players love to be dealt A-K (or “Big Slick,” as players call it). If the flop contains either an ace or a king, the player holding Big Slick will have the top pair with the best possible kicker.
Game texture — the relative aggressiveness or passivity exhibited by the players — is also important in determining whether to call that bet or raise. But a feeling for the game’s texture and how it should influence your play can be obtained only from live game experience. In the absence of that experience, err on the side of caution. It costs less.
Success at Hold’em demands that you be patient, pay close attention to position, and take comfort in the knowledge that good hands are run down less often than the best Seven-Card Stud hands.