Poker Hand Tips
Hand Guide: Preflop > Flop > Turn > River
The Texas Holdem hand guide below will take you through each stage of a poker hand from the preflop round to the river, and give you a brief overview of the strategy you should try and employ as well as the thought processes behind making profitable decisions at each stage of the hand.
Knowing how to play a poker hand well from start to finish is not an easy skill to learn. Many players can play certain rounds well, but struggle on others. It is important to learn how to play each round profitably.
The individual Texas Holdem strategy articles found on this site will help to fine tune different aspects of your game, but it is here that you will find the fundamental principles behind playing a winning Texas Holdem hand. There is also a list of useful articles at the end of each guide for further information on different concepts and plays that you can use at each stage in the hand.
Step 1: Record hands. It is imperative for any poker player who takes the game seriously to record their hand histories. Of course, this isn’t really possible for live players, but live players ought to write down especially notable hands to study afterward. Official poker rankings: ties and kickers. Poker is all about making the best five-card poker hand from the seven cards available (five community cards plus your own two hole cards). That means in the event of a tie with four of a kind, three of a kind, two pair, one pair, or high card, a side card, or 'kicker', comes into play to decide who wins the pot. It sucks to suck at things and poker is no different.For more free poker strategy go to In this 10-part beginner poker strategy. Poker Tip 1: Aggression Pays in Poker. The only way to win at poker is to bet – and the only way to win a lot is to bet a lot. Poker is a game of timed, focused aggression. And as you master the basics of the game, you’ll learn when you need to up the aggression at the table.
Individual betting round strategy articles.
Before the flop is where it all starts, so learn how to get the foundations started correctly. This article focuses on good starting hand selection, along with key position tips and a quick guide to optimum preflop betting.
Poker Strategy Tips
Many of the decisions that you will make at the poker table will be based on the flop or will stem from the flop later in the hand. This article highlights the importance of being able to identify the different textures of flop and the best strategies for dealing with them.
The turn is often forgotten about in the Texas Holdem strategy world but can often prove to be a very important street. So don't forget about it and learn how to play it well.
Now all of the cards are out and its time to make the best 5-card hand possible. Pick up some key tips on how to play when you have the best of it and when you have the worst of it.
Playing a good Poker hand is not always easy, as there are always going to be opportunities to make mistakes along the way. Use the tips in this article to help yourself make more profitable decisions on each betting round.
Best Low Hand In Poker
Bonus Article:Poker Mistakes - Avoid the most common mistakes when playing a hand.
Playing a hand in Texas Hold'em.
These articles are quite lengthy, but they are actually as condensed as I could make them without leaving out any tips or strategy that I thought was vital to being able to play each betting round successfully. However, although these articles should prove to be a handy guide for you, you should try your best to learn from them, and not rely on using them every time you make a decision at the Texas Hold'em poker table.
Try not to refer to these guides too often whilst playing poker. Learn from these articles as best as you can and use your own judgment when making decisions at the poker table.
Being able to stand on your own two feet and make decisions for yourself is what is going to help you develop into the best player that you can be. So be prepared to eventually move away from using guides, and try to use your head as much as you can during play. Ask yourself questions like:
- What do I expect to achieve with this play?
- What am I going to do on the next betting round if I make this play?
- How do I think my opponent is going to react to this play?
The more questions you ask yourself, the more refined and calculated your plays will be. A winning poker player is a thinking poker player, so you're going to have to use that logic of yours if you want to win money. If you do not use your head, you may as well play online casino games instead.
Poker is a game of skill, so use your ability to get the better of your opponents.
Introduction to Poker Hand Reading
Poker hand reading is an intuitive, logical process of narrowing your opponents range down as much as you can with the information available. It’s about reading your opponent’s cards without physically seeing them. Believe it or not, many professionals can do this with relative ease against certain types of opponents.
Daniel Negreanu has made a career from promoting his poker hand reading ability. Whilst he is unquestionably gifted at it, many a professional can do likewise but aren’t afforded the same stage to advertise this skill, or, choose to stay quiet and rake in the money instead.
Narrowing an Opponent’s Hand Range
Poker hand reading is a process of elimination, not guess work. It involves ruling out as many hands a possible to arrive at your opponents likely holding. The way you narrow an opponent’s range of hands is by looking at the context of the situation, their position, their history, their table image and the actions they are taking in the hand to make informed, logical conclusions.
For instance, in a full ring table, with a tight player opening from under the gun, we can eliminate the vast majority of hands available to a list consisting of pocket 5s and up, any big suited ace and KQs. This information is invaluable as we can almost play any two cards in a deep stacked game against this type of opponent, cherry picking boards to take the pots away.
Remember That There are 4 Rounds of Betting
The key thing to poker hand reading is remembering that as each round of betting is completed, more information is being given to you by your opponent. This means by the time you reach the river; you should be confident putting your opponent on some likely hands, based on how the hand has developed.
There’s a lot to poker hand reading, its more complex than other forms of gambling where it’s mostly chance. If this is more your bag then look online for the best payout casinos. Reading your opponent takes experience, critical thinking and poker instinct.
Exampleof How to Hand Read in Poker
It is a cash game with $1-$2 blinds. Player A has $350 and you have $420.
Player A is a small ball type player, keen to attack a lot of pots but doesn’t get too involved or generate big pots unless he is very strong. You have a solid image.
Pre-Flop
It folds to Player A who opens to $7 on button, you make the call from the SB with:
The Flop
The flop comes:
You check, and he checks.
We now have some useful information. He raised before the flop when folded to him on the button. This is not very helpful; we know he will probably raise many hands here so nothing valuable here. On the flop however he has checked back on this board heads up. The fact he has not bet this flop heads up is unusual.
A small baller will often continuation bet heads up to take down the pot or extract value. By checking back, we can reasonably assume he has neither a monster hand like two pair, overpair or three of a kind but he probably doesn’t have completely nothing either. If he had nothing, he would be more inclined to continuation bet. This leads me to think he could have a big ace which missed, an 8, a 4 or a pocket pair between 4 and 9 that he is pot controlling.
The Turn
The turn comes:
We check again and he bets $10.
This is an interesting spot. What hands can we put our opponent on here? I would say he has played his hand like an 8 at this point. It’s possible he checked back the flop with a 7 9s type hand and now has a 7 and 5-6 is possible, although unlikely as I would expect him to bet the flop with that hand.
At this point, with our nut flush draw, I anticipate people will often call the turn here, check the river and our opponent will check back for showdown value.
We could consider a check raise? By check raising, we give ourself a good chance to win the pot now or make our hand on the river. We also are likely to get hands like 5-5/6-6, a 7 and an an 8 to fold. After all, we have shown immense strength by check raising the turn here and it’s entirely plausible we have three of a kind or a AJ type hand here.
We actually call.
The River
The river comes:
We check and he checks.
Before he turns over his hand, we can feel pretty confident he is going to show a hand like 8-10/7-9/Pocket 5s or Pocket 6s. How do we know this? What other hands is he likely to have that will check back flop, bet turn for protection/value and check back river?
Poker Hand Tips Chart
He mucks and you win the pot.
Poker Hand Reading Considerations
How To Win More Poker Hands
The most important things when poker hand reading is knowing your opponents tendencies, knowing the types of hands they play and having an awareness of how they perceive you. By combining these factors, you can often arrive at a likely range of hands your opponent will hold. When you couple this with bet sizing and pot odds, it becomes even simpler. Remember, you can’t become an expert over night. It takes experience and hard work but it will be worth it.