Beginner Poker Articles
Beginner Poker Articles – Everyone has to start somewhere. These articles contain advice for beginner poker players. Even if you’re not a beginner in poker, they’ll help you with learning new games or re-learning those basic concepts you forgot. You should also check out the Poker Strategy page, which has plenty of beginner to advanced strategy articles.
While you play the same game whether you are playing online or in a brick and mortar casino, there are significant differences in how the games run and how players must adjust their play depending on whether they are online or offline. Knowing how to deal with these differences is imperative, especially for a player just starting to play online after playing live poker or vice versa.
The first and most obvious difference between live and online play [...]
Forcing other players to fold is probably the most efficient way to collect chips in poker. While winning a big pot against another opponent is always great, it cannot be counted on, as a big pot requires some combination of big hands, aggressive play, and intestinal fortitude. The big pot will be a sporadic occurrence, while forcing the fold will be one’s main method of collecting chips.
The continuation bet is one of the most useful tools in [...]
Recently, I conducted an experiment with regards to online poker freerolls. The results were rather interesting, and suggest a course of action that players should take when participating in online poker freerolls.
Freerolls are, of course, multi-table tournaments that have no entry fee, but award prizes such as cash, an entry into another tournament, or sometimes just a poker book. These tournaments draw a lot of players, mostly those who haven’t risked any of their own money to [...]
A type hand that many poker players love is suited connectors. They enjoy being able to make a straight or a flush, as they will have a good chance of raking in a large pot, and suited connectors are the hands best suited to fulfilling the players’ desire to make a straight or a flush. However, many players have a tendency to fall in love with suited connectors, causing them to make bad plays and lose a large [...]
In my last article, I explained many factors to consider when deciding whether or not to play small pocket pairs before the flop. Now, I will continue to explain small pocket pair strategies, this time dealing with the factors that should be considered once the flop has been revealed.
The first situation I will describe is also the simplest one, where you got a cheap look at the flop, while there are several other players in the hand. If [...]
Playing small pocket pairs can be a very challenging aspect of poker, because while they can form a monster hand if a set forms on the flop, which will happen about once every seven and a half times, they are also very easily beat by players who hold overcards and improve their hands with the community cards. Small pocket pairs are also weak if a big hand forms on the board, such as two pair, as the small pair [...]
As more and more players drop out of a poker game you will have to be more aggressive as the average quality of starting hands goes down. The trick to short-handed play is to balance aggression and caution, so that you do not throw chips away for no purpose. If you are a short stack, you will be wanting to be patient while looking for a suitable all-in hand. If you have a decently-sized stack you will [...]
One of the most difficult decisions to make in poker is to risk your entire chip stack. There is so much uncertainty in poker that it is never a comfortable decision to make. You could hold pocket aces and still be uneasy because you don’t know whether your hand will survive the community cards that are revealed. Anytime you push all your chips into the middle, there will always be the chance that none of them are [...]
Playing small pocket pairs can be a very challenging aspect of poker, because while they can form a monster hand if a set forms on the flop, which will happen about once every seven and a half times, they are also very easily beat by players who hold overcards and improve their hands with the community cards. Small pocket pairs are also weak if a big hand forms on the board, such as two pair, as the small pair [...]
One of the most frustrating aspects for a young (and that’s not referring to age, but to experience) poker players can be when you go scrounging for all the information and advice you can get, only to find that while you might get some good advice, you have no idea how to translate that into a practical use at the poker table. One of the most common examples I see of this is the sage advice: “Observe your opponents.†[...]
