Hot answers tagged texas-hold-em
25
In limit games, the only raise amount allowed is the big blind during preflop and flop play; double the big blind during turn and river play.
The correct minimum raise in big bet games (no limit and pot limit) is to increase the amount of the bet by the amount of the previous bet (e.g. double the previous raise*), or to raise all-in if you do not have ...
12
The general rule of thumb from me would be to stick with the same raise you would make in the same situation with T9s. You want to balance your range so that you get a good mix of action with your great hands and folds with your steals.
What that raise should be will depend a lot on your history with the blinds and on their stack sizes. Whether we are ...
12
If you are playing a 5 card game (like Hold-Em) then only the top 5 cards play. So, in this case, there are 4 on the table (6-9) and you each have a 10, for the best possible hand a 6-10 straight.
It is also possible that you have AA, and friend KK, but the board comes out 3-4-5-6-7 and you split as you both play the best hand - the board.
11
The standard straddle is, in general, a losing proposition. You're trading 2BB for the right to play last preflop. You'll end up playing larger pots out of position, which is a bad thing. You have to have a huge edge against your opposition to make up for the positional disadvantage.
Some special situations, where straddling makes sense:
Trying to build ...
11
Please, before you continue reading and make any decisions based on what I'm about to tell you, you must understand two important things:
I'm not a lawyer. I can't even say that I dabble in law. I'm not an expert on these matters, and many people who are expert disagree with one another. As simple as your question may seem, it is not easy to answer.
...
10
I think the only realistic options for villain are a missed draw or Tx. I think he'd have gotten more aggressive earlier if he had you preflop. Your line looks a lot like an overpair to me, and as such, he would want to get value out of you if he had trips or a full house. As such, I don't think he shoves the river here if he wanted a call. He knows you ...
10
Because the 555 are not just 555, it's a full house (fives full of queens). Elezra only has QQQ.
In Hold'em you have to make the best five cards out of seven: using either 0, 1 or 2 of your holecards and either 3, 4 or 5 community cards.
In the deal you linked to the community cards are:
3⋄5♠Q♠Q♣J♥
The best hand Eli ...
9
After the flop you've seen 4 cards of your suit, and 1 of another suit. This leaves 9 cards of your suit, and 38 of a different suit; your odds of completing your flush on the turn are thus 9/47, or 19.14%.
If the flop hasn't completed your flush, your odds of completing it on the river are 9/46, or 19.5%.
This means that the total odds for completing a ...
9
Against a full table of random hands, AA will win under 30% of the time.
Against any individual random hand, AA will win 85% of the time.
Presumably, your tournament featured full tables. That means that if you play the hand in a way that keeps too many opponents in the hand, you are going to lose very frequently. In the long run, it will be slightly less ...
9
Your second question is unanswerable. Estimating what the mix of styles in a tournament will be on average is too inflexible an assumption for any strategic use. Your first question is more interesting and problematic. Can we play small-ball poker in a cash-game? Yes, but it takes far greater personal involvement from the player, and frankly doesn't lead to ...
8
First, a look at ranges: I think he has AA/KK/Tx/88/33 here no more often than he has JJ or a busted draw (to the straight or the flush). And sometimes he'll turn up with utter crap. So if we say it's an even money bet, we're getting good odds on a call.
Second, let's look at history: You noted in the comments that Villian has not let a pot check around. ...
8
Honestly, I think that small ball strategy is significantly more effective in cash games. Many of the benefits it provides center around people adjusting to your image. In tournaments, that can all go down the drain when players are moved to different tables. By contrast, in cash games you are much more likely to play a large number of hands against the same ...
8
Unless explicitly noted, poker hands are only 5 cards. If you have 7 cards to choose from, you make the best 5 card hand you can, and the other 2 don't count.
Your best possible hand in that situation was 6 7 8 9 T. Your friend's best possible hand was 6 7 8 9 T. Since they were the same, you tied and split the pot.
8
I am not a lawyer. What follows is my understanding of the facts, having been involved in the online poker industry since 2004:
Summary: With the exception of a few states, no law is on the books to make online poker illegal. This means that it is legal in most areas of the United States.
In the United States, our legal system operates on the concept of ...
8
The big four are definitely:
Theory of Poker by David Sklansky - perhaps the best book for establishing an understanding of poker theory in general. This one is worthwhile no matter what poker game you're into.
Super System compiled by Doyle Brunson - between this and its sequel, you can get a good ground-level understanding of any game. It's not something ...
8
There have been several posts already here explaining how to compute side-pots (note that the subject of penalty blinds has not been dealt with but that is another topic).
Here's one such topic:
How are side pots built?
Question. Is the ratio against the total pot... or the other winners?
Is this correct? Get a ratio compared to others?
The ...
8
If they are beginners, their play is completely haotic and makes absolutely no sense. In a weird and ironic way, this makes such players somewhat dangerous...
I see this all the time if I play online and enter a tournament that has virtual money as entry fee (yeah, I still do that). In such tournaments, people often go all-in in the absolute first hand with ...
7
The rule of thumb I've always heard is that tournaments tend to end when there are around 10 big blinds left on the table.
You will need to know the number of players you will have, your starting blind level and stack size, and your desired tournament length. Generally, you will not want to start with deep stacks for a short tournament. The final blind ...
7
My standard raise in this spot preflop would be something like $84. With reads that villains are bad (i.e. will call 3bets like this way too often) that number becomes bigger. So $110 probably isn't a bad raise size, but you should realize that you're putting in 1/3 of effective stacks and you really don't want to play postflop when that's the case.
Under ...
6
What @Jeffrey Blake said, is totally correct, however there are situations when you don't need to balance you range in this situation at all, for example against players who doesn't care and calling anyway, you should make as big bets as you can to make more profit. Also, against players who are not observant at all, you might make bigger bets, because they ...
6
Generally, as stacks get shallower, cards matter more. As stacks get deeper, game dynamics and player tendencies matter more.
Shallow
When playing with short effective stacks (<50bb), you need to play hands that will make the best hand a lot of the time. If you are playing against people with larger stacks, you will have less fold equity, so you will ...
6
I'm iffy about your flop bet-size. There are not many hands that you are worse than even-money with on that board. Represent the strength that you have so that your decisions later in the hand are easier. A half pot bet looks like you are just c-betting to c-bet.
Honestly, I prefer either a larger bet to maintain control of the hand, or a similar bet to ...
6
By definition, a continuation bet is a bet made on one betting round after you were the aggressor in the previous betting round. Continuation bets are typically made regardless of whether or not the cards that came improved your hand. Most often the term applies to bets made during the second round of betting (the flop in Texas Hold'em) after aggression ...
6
The odds of getting a 4 of a kind given 7 cards (2 in your hand and 5 on the board) are (13 * (48 choose 3)) / (52 choose 7) or 0.00168067227. The probability of getting that specific 4 of a kind again are now (48 choose 3) / (52 choose 7) or 0.000129282482.
The probability of both events occurring is 0.00168067227* 0.000129282482, which is ...
6
Shoving with a straight+flush draw is a pretty standard play for NLHE in my book. You typically have enough equity to be even money against your opponent's calling range. That means you could call their shove and see a profit due to the dead money in the pot.
Almost any time that you could call and be even money, a shove is better, and the more money in the ...
6
Theoretically, no. For every dollar you and your opponent add to the pot, you stand to win your dollar back plus some of his, regardless of his hand. However there are a few practical edge-cases worth considering.
Trusting the game
If this is your first time playing in a home game, there are a few ways this could be a mistake. The first is cheating; ...
5
Limping AJs on the button was probably a mistake (raise), tiny raise with top 2 in a tiny pot was probably a mistake (raise bigger), and calling the all-in is pretty easy in this spot. Against the tightest range we can assign villain in this spot, you are a favorite:
Board: Ad Js 2c
equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: ...
5
First, let's establish some parameters for what makes us pot-committed. Preflop, I like to stick with a 2-1 ratio, since the only way to be definitively more than 2-1 behind your opponent would be to know that his range is almost entirely made up of hands that have you dominated. We definitely know that this is not the case if we are short-stacked preflop.
...
5
This question may go Wiki at some point.
From the ones I've read, I'd recommend:
Every Hand Revealed - Gus Hansen - from a pro who managed to win this one. You see it all, good moves and bad.
Harrington on Holdem (Vol 1 and Vol 2) - The basics, and not so basics, of Holdem. A necessary start to get your M moving and your EV in line.
Power Hold'em ...
5
It would be treated like a normal raise only his hand would be automatically folded the next turn (or if there is a re-raise).
If everyone folds up to player 2, player 2 would be downright dumb not to re-raise - knowing player 3 is an automatic fold. Money would then go to player 2. In a heads up situation, same deal.
If more than one person calls, player ...
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