subject: Hold Em Strategies To Win [print this page] It comes as no surprise that the single most important Hold Em strategy is simple, to stay in the game! Knowing the rules and the odds, and standing by them best accomplish this. While there are no guarantees, you know youll come out ahead the majority of the time. Playing the odds is exactly what the casinos do and they rely on the expectation that you wont have the discipline to do the same. Thus they win by the natural laws of mathematics and you contribute to that by betting on instinct and hoping for luck. This separates the novices from the pros.
If you find yourself in a professional level game, you will want to draw as little attention to yourself as possible. This is a club, of sorts, and you may find yourself the target of a concentrated effort to put you out of the game. The same could be said for some highly competitive organized games that have been ongoing for some time. They may welcome your money, but are not necessarily generous enough to see you walk away with it.
On a home game level, its pretty much a free-for-all. Have a bit of fun and mislead the others with false tells. For example, if your nervous habit is to scratch your nose, consciously scratch it at every opportunity. Dont be so obvious that they realize youre playing around, but just consistent enough at different times as to mislead them why youre doing that. Or for example, play with your chips when youre excited. And then again when youre not. Youll confuse the play and eventually, theyll ignore you and this is when you may operate without restriction! In the meantime, you may have conducted some healthy bluffs.
Another strategy is to annoy the other players at the table. Youll see the pros do this by jiggling their chips, tapping their fingers, making noises or whistling under their breath or keeping up a litany of personal comments directed at the other players. This serves to break their concentration and cause them to go on tilt, or betting erratically simply to make the irritation go away. Viewers who arent aware of what is going on may think theres something wrong with the irritating player, but in fact its all part of their acting strategy. Try this at your next home game. Dont overdo it, though, because theres more than a game involved hereyou have to live with these players!
Assuming you arent gambling next months house payment, this is the time to have fun and work on your own strategy. Learn when to play hot and heavy and when to hold the hand to your chest. You might even, when the hand is right, reveal just a bit more of the corner peek than you need to just to see whos watching and what they do with that information. This is particularly effective when youre in the Big Blind and have nothing more to lose.
Can you come up with your own original Texas Hold Em strategies?
