How to Play Texas Hold’em Poker Online. Texas Hold’em is arguably the most famous of all poker games. If you are new to the game of poker, Texas Hold’em Poker is a great place to start. Welcome to PokerStrategy.com's strategy section. In the next few minutes you will learn how to play texas hold'em poker with a winning style. Our authors have prepared articles and video presentations which will not only teach you how to play Texas Hold'em, but will enable you to use the correct game strategies to play and win on the tables.

1. Free Hold Em Poker
2. Poker Hold Em Hands
3. Deuces Wild Hold'em Fold Em Poker
4. Texas Em Hold Poker Free
5. Poker Hold Em No Limit

Last week an ex-Google friend of mine who also builds poker AIs directed me to a 2+2 thread about a new video poker machine from IGT that offers players 6-way fixed-limit hold’em against five bots. The bots play poorly, but the catch, of course, is really high rake — 25% up to 2.25 bets maximum, or 9 bets in the pot to reach max rake.

The game is called Texas Hold’em Fold Up, and it already has gotten a lot of attention.

In the 2+2 thread, John Mehaffey and Jimmy ”Gobbo” Fricke had a interesting discussion about the game, whether or not it’s beatable, and how it could be an effective way to earn Caesars’ Seven Star status in perhaps a less expensive sort of way than can be done via other casino games. Mehaffey wrote a good article about the game last week as well. Both the thread and Mehaffey’s article are worth checking out for anyone who wants details of the game as well as smart discussion about it.

Since there is still no Total Rewards in Brooklyn, I have not played the game as yet, but that’s not going to deter me from offering an opinion on this “6-max poker” game that stands as a clever take on the standard video poker machine. I know that many of my WSOP buddies enjoy a bit of video poker, so here is my attempt to answer some obvious questions that come to mind about Texas Hold’em Fold Up.

Is the game beatable?

Well, the casino certainly does not think so. We’ll get into the details of the five bots and 25% rake, but it’s worth noting that the game does give out casino loyalty points and is distributed by IGT which controls something like 95% of the video poker market and many of the patents. It’s safe to assume that IGT considers this primarily as yet another video poker game.

According to Mehaffey’s piece, Texas Hold’em Fold Up was created by Michael Baker, whose background is in life insurance and financial management — in other words, not in AI. These days to sell a casino game, a blackjack side-bet, or a slot machine concept to the casino industry, you’d need beforehand to demonstrate that the new game can’t be beaten, even by a very smart player. (If it did not exist already, I’m pretty sure that you could not get blackjack into a modern casino, except perhaps the ”blackjack pays 6-to-5” variety.)

But you’re pretty good at limit hold’em, you say. Can you gain an advantage with good play? Certainly.

As with table games and video poker, this game is designed so that the casino gets a minimum win from everybody, even from a very good player, and the casino has a chance to win even more when players make mistakes. According to the Wizard of Odds, you can play most video poker games within 0.5% of break even just by following a few rules, but most players don’t do that. The casino wins 1-2% more from actual video poker players than they would if those players played by the book.

Similarly, unless you’re playing with bad rules, following that pocket blackjack card at a Vegas table also gets you to within 0.5% of the house edge. Most players lose about 2% per bet instead, by making a few costly mistakes.

Going back to Texas Hold’em Fold Up, then, 25% rake is very high, and the casinos think you can’t beat it. I’m not tempted to say that they are wrong, and I doubt that you could beat that rake just with ”good poker.” But if we break down the structure of the game, perhaps there are some spots to exploit and others to avoid. We’ll take a look at that in just a bit.

Is Texas Hold’em Fold Up like the Heads-Up Hold’em machine?

Not really.

The “Texas Hold’em Heads-Up Poker” machines, which have been had a niche presence in Vegas casinos since 2010, are also distruted by IGT. But those machines were created by a small company called G2 Game Design in an office park off of S. Rainbow Boulevard in suburban Las Vegas. The company purchased a neural network-based AI for heads-up limit hold’em developed by a Norwegian scientist in the late 1990’s.

First came the AI, which Frederik Dahl (an engineer with a background in AI) developed for his own personal interests, then a businessman bought the rights and they turned it into a slot machine. They convinced IGT and some of their customers that the AI plays so well that it can hold any limit hold’em player to a draw and beat most of them substantially, without the need for rake of any kind.

There’s more interesting backstory here, but after some players did play pretty well against the Texas Hold’em Heads-Up Poker machines, the casinos kept them but removed the player points. The heads-up machine indeed plays very good poker, and it is very hard to beat. While there is no rake, you also get nothing back.

This new 6-max machine is different. From what Mehaffey and Fricke have reported, the five bots play bad poker, but the rake is set so high the casinos are still willing to give you some of that rake back, in casino rewards points.

So how does a player get maximum value playing Texas Hold’em Fold Up? Much of this is speculation on my part, but there are a few factors in your favor:

• not all bets have the same value (you pay no additional rake above a 9-bet pot)
• the bots play badly, and predictably (with some logic, which I attempt to guess below)
• by state law, the bot cannot adjust to your play (every hand is played independently)
• the button moves, so position matters
• the goals of the casino and the game developer may not be the same

With some of these factors in mind, let’s think a little further about the game design, and about who is designing the game.

Bots playing badly — it’s the whole point

In an interview with The New York Times, Gregg Giuffria, owner of the Texas Hold’em Heads-Up Poker machines rolled out before, talks about the problems with running an AI that is too good and therefore beats the players too quickly. More to the point, poker players are drawn to opponents that play badly rather than to those who play close to game theory optimal poker (a topic I’ve explored here before).

The new 6-max game seems to solve this by offering five terrible opponents, but raking so much that you still can’t win. You see the bots making terrible bets and call downs, so you play more. If you make a side-bet that pays out a bonus when you make premium hands (bets for which the house has a significant edge), so much the better.

How would you go about designing an AI for a bad poker bot, albeit one that will still win given a 25% cushion? That’s an interesting question to consider.

As I learned from building a deep learning heads-up poker AI, reading board texture is hard for computers, much harder even than for a mediocre human player. It’s easy to calculate your odds for making a pair, for making a flush, and to approximate the odds of a one-pair hand winning on the river. But it’s much harder to know when your hand will have good implied odds, when your middle pair might be vulnerable, or when that same pair is pretty much the nuts given the way a hand has played out.

Exploiting these different spots when playing the new Texas Hold’em Fold Up game is your advantage, especially as the background of the game creator isn’t in math or computer science. I think it’s safe to assume that the bots play a rules-based, fixed strategy which is not sophisticated at all.

Mehaffey and Fricke’s examples of the bots calling down with king-high and seven-high on paired boards suggest that the bots may even not be reading the board texture at all, and instead are simply looking up the odds of winning with “a pair on the river,” even if the bot is playing the board. To be fair, the seven-high call involved a hand drawing to a straight and flush draw on the turn. It’s probably safe to assume that the bot will draw to any straight or flush, given some minimal pot odds.

I promise there will be specific suggestions — if you can’t wait, you can go ahead and scroll down below. First, though, I want to take a look at an example hand, just to see how devastating 25% rake can be.

Just like small-stakes hold’em?

A game with a high rake but with weak players who draw to the end and who never fold? Sounds a lot like actual limit hold’em games from back in the boom days. Or perhaps like small-stakes underground poker games, where players don’t come after work to fold, or to think too long about pot odds.

When I think about loose limit hold’em games, I think of the seminal book Small Stakes Hold’em by Ed Miller, David Sklansky, and Mason Malmuth. And when I think of that book, I think about playing a vulnerable top pair hand with multi-way action.

Free Hold Em Poker

Suppose you hold on a flop. Your value against two random hands in such a situation is 61%, with the value of the other two being 19.5% apiece.

If you were to bet and both of your opponents called, with no rake your $1 bet is worth $0.83 in surplus value, since you always lose the $1 you bet, but you get $3 back 61% of the time .

Now if you’re paying 25% rake on that bet, it’s still costing you a dollar to bet, but you lose 25% of the whole $3 when you win. The value of your bet falls to $0.37 surplus value. That’s much more than a 25% cut in profits!

Let’s consider the same hand with 4-way action. Again, you are up against random opponents who are calling you blind, and you’ve got top pair with on a flop. In this case your hand has a value of 49%, with the other three random hands having a value of 17% each.

In the no-rake case, your surplus value here goes up to $0.96. (Of course it does, you want the extra caller.) In the 25% rake case, your value also goes up — to $0.47.

This example is against two or three completely random players. In reality, just eliminating some bad preflop hands from your opponents’ ranges means your bet loses almost all of its marginal value after the rake, even if you are still up against random hands and passive opponents.

I could not quite come up with a break-even scenario, but if you give one opponent , another , and the third one for middle pair, your surplus value goes down to just 17 cents, after 25% rake.

While the hand is getting raked, you are playing the ”penny auction” of poker. The competition is soft, but you’re paying a fee for every bid, whether you win or not. Thus does a great spot like top pair on the flop become a barely-profitable bet.

Meanwhile bluffing becomes especially expensive, since you’re paying a 25% tax when you win, while the bot gets full value to call you down. Calling a single bets, though, is still usually worth it. Getting 8-to-1 from the pot, compared to 6-to-1 after rake, is not really a major difference in most cases.

So what might be some good spots for the player?

I think it’s safe to assume that the bots are not explicitly colluding against you. I don’t know if that’s promised in the game details, but with a 25% rake cushion, the bots don’t need to collaborate to have an edge, and it’s really not that simple to code rules-based bots to team up on your hands, in any case.

That said, if two bots are raising each other until the street caps, this does put you in a tough spot with many a drawing hand, so it’s reasonable to think that the bots’ rules make sure that this happens often, without resorting to explicit collusion.

Mehaffey and Fricke mention the bots tend to cap once they bet and are raised. They do this both against the player and against each other. All of this suggests that the bot bets out with most of its good hands, and with some of its good draws, too. When it calls, it calls with weaker made hands, and weaker draws. It should actually be relatively easy to put the bot on a range of hands.

All of this means good spots for the player include:

• really strong hands (70%+ value), especially multi-way
• good draws (like big flush draws), since you will be called down
• the river, if you make it that far
• the button, as good hands will bet into you, and weak hands will check

Poker Hold Em Hands

While the pot is small, you pay a penalty to call, and a bigger one to bet. It’s better to get to a 70% winner cheaply, then make much more valuable bets. Even better would be making it past the 9-bet mark and stopping paying rake thereafter, then getting your flush paid off by middle pair.

I imagine that on the river, especially in position, it’s possible to get very good value, until and unless the bot’s algorithm is upgraded. Given that the bot cannot adjust to your play — and since the whole point of this poker game-slash-slot machine is to show you bad players you think you can beat — the river upgrade does not seem likely to happen anytime soon.

I’d either try to get great odds for a strong multi-way hand, or I’d try to see the river cheaply. Otherwise, you’ll probably want to fold a lot of marginal hands, or even good hands that just don’t make too many 70%+ boards. The bots can afford to look you up with middle pair, and they will. You can’t afford to call them off with similar hands in return.

The bots fold face up — does this help the player?

When the bots fold in the game, they fold face up (hence the “fold up” name). Does this provide an advantage to the player?

Not so much. It’s hard for the bot’s AI to adjust to board texture, and as mentioned before by state law it’s not allowed to adjust to your play. But it’s easy to account for the odds of making a straight or a flush based on cards folded face up. Use the information too, but this isn’t where the player’s edge comes.

You’re better off hoping that the bots hold on to their weak hands and longshot draws while their cards are still face down. Maybe they will make just enough of a hand to pay off on the river. Remember, the bots are tuned so that they defend against being taken off a hand, so bet good hands on the end that they will pay you off.

So we know casinos are not in the money-losing business. But could they have missed something? Possibly.

New casino games and slot machines are introduced in stages. Whoever creates a new game first sinks money into design and manufacturing, and also creates some math to show that a game cannot be beaten by a card-counting shark. Then, once a prototype is approved for testing, it gets introduced to sample casinos in Biloxi or wherever. There, the distributor gets a real idea for how popular the game might be, as well as how much it actually makes, against real players.

If the players don’t play, the game never makes it to Vegas. If the casino can’t beat the players, it also never makes it to Vegas. But if you put $2 million into a new game design, you really want to make sure that players voluntarily want to sit down and bet real money playing it. This is more important than anything else, especially to the game creator.

Deuces Wild Hold'em Fold Em Poker

Given how much the 25% rake throws off the odds for even pretty straightforward spots like betting top pair in a loose 6-max limit game, it’s certainly possible that real players lost a tidy sum but also kept playing, given some of the terrible hands that the bots showed down. The adjustments you’d need to make to beat the game might be so unusual to a good limit hold’em player, that the test casino players of Texas Hold’em Fold Up never thought to try them.

Did I mention that there are no blinds? Instead, players post a small ante every hand. If position is as important as I suppose it could be, this is a good move by IGT to make it that much more painful to fold. And yet, it’s probably important to fold mediocre hands that make vulnerable top-pair, middle-pair type hands, while paying full rake.

Could you simulate this?

It wouldn’t be that hard to create players that compete independently, knowing that they need to beat a player who is paying 25% rake up to 2.25 bets. And in turn, to simulate a bot for the player’s side. But it’s not so simple that I could do it with my neural network AI in a few days.

I’d expect that the EV for the player’s hand is almost always negative, but often close to the value of posting an ante. Ante-only for this game really is a sharp piece of design. If I played, I think it would be too tempting to play too many hands, especially if you’re playing something like $2/$4 limit. Once you’re in, you get sucked into calling several bets, and not really in a position to bet anyone off. Not until you make a good hand, or make it to the river, could you get any real value from the bots.

I bet that a neural network simulation might be pretty good at figuring out what kinds of preflop hands lose the most, and which ones can get to those valuable late-game spots a little more often. Also, it would be nice to get an idea of how much position is worth.

How will the game change? Will it last?

Once a game hits the casino floor it never really goes away, but I don’t know if I see this one becoming too popular, as currently constituted. From what I’ve read, it sounds like the players lose every time. To make the game popular, you want the players to win sometimes, and that means decreasing the rake on the main game. Of course, lowering the rake means that the bots will have to play better, too.

That said, playing fast, small-stakes 6-max hold’em against opponents that fold face-up sounds like it could be a lot of fun. I can see this catching on, especially as part of a video poker mix, but not if the casino takes back 25% of every pot.

Also, if the rake goes down, some bluffs may become profitable, and it may not be necessary to nit it up as much as I suggest for this current version. You want players to have fun, and also to have a chance to win when they are having fun. If the fun style loses the most, this becomes a problem for the game’s longevity.

How many people will really want to nit it up at $2/$4 against a computer? Even for those who are happy to pay some rake to kill time after a tourney, will they keep playing if they never book a winning session?

Will there be a no-limit hold’em version anytime soon?

I don’t think so. Betting with a slider is just too complicated for a casino game, where you expect to play a hand every 45 seconds. I can see something with a “pot” or “max-bet” button, but the casino doesn’t want you to lose (or win) everything in one hand. They want you to make a lot of small bets, take a percentage of each bet, and occasionally to let you hit a longshot for a big payoff so that you win and come back.

Final thoughts

Game design sounds in theory like it might be fun, but it’s actually pretty tedious. You have to please several different parties at once, and if either the players, the casino, or the game distributor is not satisfied, your game will never make it to the casino floor. There aren’t too many people who design games successfully, and if any of them are reading this, please let me know what I got wrong here.

Texas Hold’em Fold Up sounds like a fun game, and hopefully it will still be Vegas next summer for me to take a shot playing it during next year’s WSOP. Until then, those of you who do get a chance try it out, let me know what you think.

^{Illustrations: IGT}

Nikolai Yakovenko is a professional poker player and software developer residing in Brooklyn, New York who helped create the ABC Open-Face Chinese Poker iPhone App.

Want to stay atop all the latest in the poker world? If so, make sure to get PokerNews updates on your social media outlets. Follow us on Twitter and find us on both Facebook and Google+!

• Tags

  no-limit hold’emlive pokerartificial intelligencecasino pokervideo pokerfixed-limit hold’emshort-handed strategy

The majority of Texas holdem strategy you find in books and
on popular web sites focuses on the offensive side of play. The
offensive and aggressive side of the game is important, but it’s
also important to learn when you need to fold.

Every bet you can save is a bet you can use to win more money
in the future. Of course you don’t want to fold when you have a
good chance to win, or when you’re receiving the correct pot
odds to call, so it’s important to find the line in every hand
between folding and continuing with the hand.

Like every other area of your Texas holdem play, you need to
base all of your decisions about folding on the play that makes
the most money in the long run, or the play that loses the least
amount of money.

The two places where you make the most important folding
decisions are your starting hands and on the river. These two
areas are covered first, and then the flop, and finally the
turn, is covered. We finish the page with a section about
folding decisions in tournament play because it’s different than
cash game play.

Bad Starting Hands

Some Texas holdem starting hands should be folded all of the
time, some should never be folded, and many should be folded
some of the time. One thing that’s hard to find is exact advice
on which hands to play and which ones shouldn’t be played.

In this section we list a group of starting hands that should
be folded all of the time. Then we look at most of the hands
that should be folded sometimes and can be played sometimes. You
may or may not agree with all of our suggestions, and that’s
fine. If you play in a game where one of the hands we list as
unplayable can be played for a profit, feel free to play it.

But if you’re a beginning player and / or aren’t turning a
regular profit at the Texas holdem tables you can safely fold
all of the hands in the first section without worrying about it
costing you any money in the long run. These hands should even
be folded in the blinds. If you see the flop for free with one
of these hands and don’t flop a solid hand you need to check and
fold as soon as an opponent bets.

Always fold these hands:

• Any hand with a two except a pair of twos and an ace two
  suited.
• Any hand with a three except a pair of threes and an ace
  three suited.
• Any hand with a four except a pair of fours and an ace
  four suited.
• Any hand with a five except a pair of fives and an ace
  five suited.
• Any hand with a six except a pair of sixes and an ace
  six suited.
• Any hand with a seven except a pair of sevens, an ace
  seven suited, and a seven eight suited.
• Any hand with an eight except a pair of eights, an ace
  eight suited, a seven eight suited, an eight nine suited,
  and an eight 10 suited.
• Any hand with a nine except a pair of nines, an ace nine
  suited, an eight nine suited, a nine 10 suited, a nine jack
  suited, a nine queen suited, and a nine king suited.

As you can see there’s quite a large list of hands that you
can fold every time you see them. By folding these hands you’ll
make more money in the long run because they all lose money on
average by entering the pot with them.

Even many of the hands you can play should be folded most of
the time. Low pocket pairs can be dangerous in many situations
and aces with suited cards below face cards can be trap hands
that cost you a great deal of money as well. The suited
connectors with a seven, eight, or nine are bad in many
situations too.

Most of the hands you should be playing are high pairs, high
suited cards, and high unsuited cards. These hands give you the
best chance to win by completing high pairs, flushes, and high
straights.

Position has a great deal to do with what hands should be
folded. In early position and in the blinds the only hands you
don’t fold are the absolute best ones. Pocket aces, kings,
queens, ace king suited, and possibly ace queen suited are the
only ones that can usually be played from early position.

You can add a few more pocket pairs and a few more suited
high card hands in middle position but you need to continue
folding most hands. As you move into late position you can play
the other hands that aren’t listed on the fold list above, but
only in some situations. The smaller pairs and lower suited
connectors need to be folded in raised pots most of the time and
are dangerous in most cases so you end up folding most of them
after the flop when you can play them.

The River

One of the most surprising revelations most players come to
understand on the way to profitable play is if you’ve made the
correct plays to get to the river, it’s rarely correct to fold
on the river. Of course if you completely miss your draw and
don’t have any chance to win you should fold when facing a bet,
but if you have even a small chance to win it’s rarely the
correct play to fold.

Here’s a simple example that helps illustrate why a call is
usually correct.

You’ve been calling with a flush and straight draw, have
missed both draws, but paired your top card on the river, giving
you the second highest possible pair. Your opponent is
aggressive and could have been betting a draw or semi bluffing
throughout the hand.

The pot has $200 in it and your opponent bets $20.

Before we continue analyzing the hand recognize how small
this bet is in comparison to the size of the pot. This either
screams weakness or a monster. If your opponent has a monster
she may be betting small hoping to get a little extra out of
you, but most of the time it’s a feeble stab at the pot trying
to get you to fold for as little as possible. This is clearly a
calling situation.

You have to call $20 for a chance to win $220. This is a
situation where you’re being offered 11 to 1 pot odds. You only
have to win the hand roughly 9% of the time to break even. Is
there any chance you don’t win the hand over 9% of the time?

You’ll find that most situations that come up on the river
that don’t involve all in bets offer odds that are favorable if
you can win 25% of the time or less. You’ll find that even many
all in situations offer favorable odds if you can win a third of
the time.

Once you start factoring in the chances of an opponent
bluffing and of your hand being best you rarely find a situation
on the river where it’s best to fold.

If you’ve never thought about it, it may come as a surprise,
but when you miss your draw the only way you can usually win on
the river is by betting and hoping your opponent folds. So don’t
be surprised when an opponent bets on the river, even if you
think they’re weak. It might be the only way they can hope to
win the hand so instead of giving up they bet.

The long answer involves some of the same thinking that we
just covered about calling bets on the river.

If you miss your draw and find yourself in a situation where
the only way you can win is if your opponent folds you need to
determine how often they need to fold for a bet to be
profitable.

You miss your draw and have a jack high hand with a board
that has an ace, king, and queen. The pot has $200 in it and if
you see the show down you have no chance of winning. How many
times, or what percentage of the time, does your opponent need
to fold if you bet $20 for the play to be profitable? What about
if you bet $40 or $50 or $100?

This is fairly easy to determine with a few mathematical
calculations. Practice figuring this out at home and you’ll find
that you can quickly make an accurate estimate at the table.

In the first example, you risk $20 to get back $220. If you
do this 100 times your total cost is $2,000. Divide your total
cost by the $220 you get back when you win and you find that if
your opponent folds 9% of the time you break even. So out of 100
times you make the bet they only have to fold 9 times. This is
such a small number that you have to bet in this situation
unless you’re 100% sure your opponent will call every time.

Here are the calculations for $40, $50, and $100.

• When you bet $40 you only have to win 16.67% of the time
  to break even.
• If you bet $50 you need to win 20% of the time to break
  even.
• Betting $100 makes the break-even point 33.33%

As you can see betting in this situation is almost always
profitable. A $100 bet into a $200 pot on a missed draw may seem
dangerous, but look at it from your opponent’s point of view.
They have to make a large commitment and if they aren’t
convinced their hand is best you stand a good chance of
pressuring them into folding. It can easily look like you just
hit a set instead of missed your draw when you make a strong bet
like this.

And as you can see from the numbers above, you only need to
make them fold a third of the time.

Our Advice: Unless you’re clearly beat, you should rarely
fold on the river. You should always try to determine if a call
is a positive expectation play, but if you have a doubt you
should usually call. And even when you’re beat a bet may be the
best play instead of a check and fold.

The Flop

After you see the flop you’ve seen five out of the seven
total cards that will make your hand and you should be able to
make a good decision about where you stand at this point in the
hand. While almost anything can happen before the flop, the
lists of possible outcomes for the hand are greatly reduced
after the flop.

At this time you need to decide if you’re going to fight
until the end or exit the hand. You see player after player
chasing a hand, seeing one more card on the turn before folding.
This habit ends up costing players enough to wipe out any
possible profit.

Players call a bet on the flop so they can try for that
inside straight or try for a higher pair, even when they’re
clearly behind in the hand.

Don’t ever take a card chasing a hand that doesn’t offer the
correct pot odds. Folding a losing long term hand here saves a
bet. Any bet saved is extra ammunition you can use at another
time to win more.

Texas holdem is never just about the current hand or
situation. Everything you do is a combination of the game that
has lead up to the current situation, the present hand, and
everything in the future that’s tied to the current hand.

Just because most strategy advice focuses on aggressive play
and the offensive part of holdem doesn’t mean folding can’t be
profitable. Here’s a list of flop situations where folding is
the most profitable long term play.

Scenario 1

You see the flop with ace king and the flop is jack, ten, and
three. A tight player fires a bet of $20, making the pot $120.
Unless the board pairs you’ll win the pot with a straight and
you may or may not win if you pair your ace or king.

The problem with pairing your ace or king is it makes a
possible straight for your opponent. So in this situation you
can usually count half of the cards that pair one of your cards
as outs. So you’re looking at four outs for the straight and
three more for pairing one of your cards for a total of seven
outs. The problem is if you pair your ace and an opponent hits a
straight how much will you lose before you get away from the
hand?

While the pot odds make a call close, the negative implied
odds make it a situation where you need to fold and wait for a
better situation where you can invest your money.

Scenario 2

You make a pre flop raise with a pair of jacks from late
position and get called by an early position limper and a middle
position limper. The flop has an ace and a king, the first
player bets and the second raises. It’s always good to be
optimistic, but it’s difficult to imagine two hands your
opponents can possibly hold that doesn’t have at least one of
them dominating your jacks.

The truth is you’re probably behind both hands at this point
and instead of throwing good money away you need to fold. You
were the aggressive player before the flop and not only has one
player improved their hand enough to make a bet into you, the
other raises. These are both clear indications of the strength
of the other hands compared to yours.

A single bet may not be enough to make you fold, though in
this case it might, but the bet and raise are just too much to
call.

Scenario 3

In a no limit Texas holdem game you call an early raise with
a pair of eights. The flop is three, four, seven, and the pre
flop bettor makes a continuation bet on the flop. Even though
you have an over pair, when you play for a set against a raise
you have to be able to fold when you don’t hit your hand.

While it’s possible you could have the best hand, the odds
are against it. And if you’re dominated by an over pair, which
is likely, you’ll end up losing a big pot. The best play is a
fold.

The Turn

The turn is listed last because if you’re playing the best
Texas holdem as possible and folding on the flop when you should
the turn generally plays itself.

If you’re ahead on the flop you’re generally still ahead on
the turn and need to continue building the value of the pot.
When you’re behind on the flop but getting the correct pot odds
to call if you haven’t improved your hand on the turn you
usually still have the correct odds to see the river.

Have you ever read the statement that if you do a good job
selecting your starting hands and make the best decisions on the
flop that the rest of the hand plays itself? This is a fairly
accurate statement.

If you find yourself in a situation where you should have
folded on the flop but wanted to see the turn, don’t compound
the mistake by chasing a bad draw to the river. Of course you
should try to avoid this situation, but never make it worse just
because of your prior mistake.

Here’s a couple of situations where seeing the turn was
correct but a fold becomes correct at this time.

Scenario 1

You have second pair and a flush draw and make a semi bluff
on the flop, but get called by two opponents. Your hand doesn’t
improve on the turn and you face an all in that creates a
negative expected value when you determine the pot odds. A semi
bluff is usually a profitable play, but learn to recognize when
one doesn’t work out and cut your losses.

Scenario 2

You have top pair with top kicker against two opponents and
the board pairs and puts the third suited card out on the turn.
Both opponents seem to come alive and start a betting war. Even
though you may have had the best hand entering the turn it’s not
likely that you still have the best hand. And if you’re behind
to either opponent at this time you’re probably drawing dead.

Tournaments

Everything we’ve talked about so far deals with cash or ring
game play. Tournament play requires a different thought process
when it comes to folding. You often have to fold in a positive
expectation situation to conserve your chips for situations
where you’re the favorite to win.

If that sounds like it is a rare situation, bear with us for
a minute. We’ll show you how you’re often in a positive
expectation situation where you aren’t the favorite to win. When
you see what we mean you’ll realize you already knew this.

In a cash game a positive expectation situation is almost
always one where you want to invest as much money as possible.
In the long run you make money from these situations, even if
you lose sometimes. The wins over time more than make up for the
losses and show a profit. But this doesn’t mean you’re the
favorite to win any single hand.

You have an open end straight draw and two over cards on the
turn, the pot has $300 in it, and you have to call a $50 all in
bet. You have 14 outs which mean you have over a 30% chance to
win the hand. This is clearly a situation where you aren’t the
favorite to win the hand, but you still have a positive expected
value. You only have to win 15% of the time to show a long term
profit.

Let’s compare this to a different situation.

Texas Em Hold Poker Free

You have two pair on the turn against a player with a flush
draw. They have a 19.57% chance to win the hand, making you a
favorite of over 80%.

In both situations you’re going to make money in the long
run, but in the second situation you’re going to win the hand a
much higher percentage of the time.

In a tournament you have a limited number of chips so you
have to protect them while trying to make them grow. The only
way to win more chips is to risk the ones you have, but you need
to risk them in situations where you have the best chance to
increase them.

It’s fairly easy to see that even in a tournament the long
term profitability of both examples described above is positive,
but in the first example you’re only going to win a hair over
30% of the time.

Poker Hold Em No Limit

So if you’re in a tournament situation where you can play for
all of your chips in a positive expectation hand but only have a
25% chance of remaining in the tournament what are you going to
do?

Three out of every four times you play the situation you get
knocked out of the tournament but the one time out of four it
sets you up nicely for a run that should help you finish in the
money. Only you can decide which way you want to play, but an
argument can easily be made for both sides.

On the other hand if you have an 80% chance to win a hand in
a tournament you have to make the play. You rarely find a
situation where you have a larger edge and you can’t fold.

The only way you’d ever consider folding in the second
situation is if you’re on the bubble and are in danger of
missing the money if you lose. And even in this situation you’ll
almost always need to call because of the large edge. With an
80% chance to win you’ll win the hand four out of every five
times you play.

Unless something tragic is going to happen, like being
evicted, unless you finish in the money the best play is to
call.

For a more in depth discussion of tournament playing decisions you should read our Texas holdem tournament pages.

It can be a difficult balancing act for Texas holdem
tournament players to choose between long term expectations in
short term negative situations and waiting for more certain
short term results. Everyone wants to only play hands where they
have a large edge, but these situations don’t come up often
enough to make it feasible to always wait on them.

Of course even when you find situations where you’re a big
favorite often enough you can still end up losing a hand. You
just hope that you’ve made enough of a cushion on the other
hands to take the loss and remain alive in the tournament.

If you’re an 80% favorite to win a hand it means you win four
out of every five times you play it. In simple terms this means
if you’re in the situation five times in a tournament you’re
going to lose one of them. So if you’re all in all five times
you’re out of the tournament.

Conclusion

Most Texas holdem players look for reasons to call instead of
reasons to fold. Most Texas holdem players lose money in the
long run.

Do you think these two things could be related?

We’re not saying these two things are directly related, but
they do appear to have some connection. Good players look for
both reasons to call or raise and reasons to fold. Then they
weigh the benefits and long term profitability of each action
and make the correct decision more often than not.

If the only thing you do is look for reasons to call you need
to start looking for reasons to fold as well. Only by looking at
the current situation as realistically as possible and not
through rose colored glasses will you be able to play the most
profitable poker.