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Editorial: No-Limit Texas Holdem Basics
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What distinguishes No-Limit Texas Holdem from other variants of the game is that No-Limit Texas Holdem is a game of intense psychology and player reading skills, basic tactical and general strategic skills. First of all, let’s look through general strategy. Basically, there are two major things that you should quickly figure out, when entering a standard No-Limit Holdem game. These are:
- Types of your opponents.
- Showdown percentage.
What are the types of opponents?
Usually, people distinguish four basic types of players: loose-aggressive, loose-passive, tight-aggressive and finally tight-passive. As you can see, there are two modifiers – tight\loose and aggressive\passive. The first modifier (tight\loose) refers to the number of hands, the player plays compared to the other players and the second modifier (aggressive\passive) refers to the betting style of the player. Each these types has certain leaks, which you can use to beat these players. The following is a brief description of each of these types and basic strategies, which can be used against them.The tight-passive type. These players usually do fine is Fixed-Limit Texas Holdem games, but their progress in No-Limit Texas Holdem is usually quite poor. When playing against the tight-passive type of players, you should consider using the following strategies:
- Use lots of bluffing at the flop – put raises preflop and try to bust your opponents at the flop.
- You can learn about the strength of your opponents’ hands from their betting style: if your opponents bet a little, then they are probably having weak hands, or are on a draw and if they bet a lot – it is more likely that they have strong hands and you should either have something decent in your pocket, or fold.
- Don’t overbluff – there’s no point in bluffing preflop if you have nothing worthy up your sleeves.
- Try to turn your opponents in either folding stations or calling stations.
The loose-passive type. These are probably the easiest opponents you’ll ever face. They can only hope that you will frequently bluff into them, since they usually call holding second-best hand. However, you won’t see many loose-passive players in No-Limit Texas Holdem games, because they lose their money very quickly and tend not to play No-Limit Holdem again.
The loose-aggressive type. In fact, there are two types of loose-aggressive players: solid players and the maniacs. Maniacs often win a lot of pots, but they also frequently get trapped and lose huge stacks within several hands. In fact, what distinguishes the maniacs from solid loose-aggressive players is lack of discipline. Solid loose-aggressive players are very dangerous, because although they seem maniacs, they are very clever and won’t let you win their money easily. However, there are several tricks that can be successfully used against them. Try to take all of them down into a one big pot. Solid loose-aggressive players usually play a lot of hands, which means that they often bet on second-best hands. Once you trap them is such a situation, just make sure they contribute a lot of money into the pot and hit it with the nuts. Another thing to consider is the size of their stacks. If your loose-aggressive opponent has a small stack – then you’re on the advantageous side, since your opponent’s bluffing is limited with his money.
The tight-aggressive type. The tight-aggressive type of Texas Holdem players is definitely the toughest one, so I recommend that you learn both playing in the tight-aggressive way (which will make you a strong opponent towards all types of players) and learn to play against other tight-aggressive players. The major problem of tight-aggressive players is that they can be easily read and may get comparatively easily bluffed. In other cases, the tight-aggressive style of play is the best option.
What is showdown percentage?
It is important to understand and use the showdown percentage concept in your play, because this is one of critical No-Limit Texas Holdem concepts. Due to the fact that No-Limit Holdem lends itself to bluffing, a player can earn plenty of money simply by stealing pots from other players, if his opponents are comparatively tight. However, this simple strategy will not work, if all of the player’s opponents will show him down at the river.Basically, before you take a seat at the table, you should pay attention to the showdown percentage, i.e. the number of hands that see the showdown. In online poker rooms you don’t even need to watch the game – just open the table window and do whatever you want for about half an hour, then get back and check table stats (or chat box) to figure out the showdown percentage. The bigger is the showdown percentage, the easier is the game, because if everybody call you down, you can fail to earn from bluffing.
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03-Jun-2009, 13:19