One of the most important factors for winning at online poker is table section and where you sit at the table. I like to play in 6-max and 9-max ring games. This way you get more of a choice on which players you can sit next to. It's good to have patience. Sometimes I may even watch everyone play from the rail before even sitting at a table. Although you don't get to see their cards from the rail, you can still get an idea of how aggressive some players may be. What you want to be able to establish is which players are passive, aggressive, or just suck in general.

When you are playing you want to take notes of who is playing their draws aggressively, who limped in the pot with AK, who attempted to bluff a hand, who is raising all the time, etc. All of these tendencies will give you a better picture of what type of playing style you are up against. If someone is raising in every position all the time, then you can safely say they are a very aggressive player, known as a LAG (loose aggressive. So you will need to adjust your play accordingly.

When in a game more then anything else you want to decide whether or not the other players are better then you and will have your number. If you feel uncomfortable playing with players you probably will not play at you're A game so you should look for another game or just quit the session all together. If you are constantly feeling uncomfortable playing at certain stakes it would be recommended that you go down a level. Don't let your ego get in the way of what is important. And that is winning at online poker!

Whether or not you should avoid games with aggressive players is a question of debate. I personally like playing against manic type players who do lots of pre flop raises and bets on the flop, you just need to adjust your play accordingly. It's important that you don't let your emotions get in the way when playing very aggressive players. Their objective is to constantly put the pressure on you hoping that you will fold your marginal hand.

The first thing you want to try and do is get position on the aggressive players. What I mean by this is that you want to sit to the left of them. The reason for this is because you will always be last to act. If the opposite was true, they could always be coming over the top for a raise and put you in awkward spots. Also, if you sit to the left of the aggressive player you are always evaluating the hand after he or she checks or bets. So you can re-raise their bets to try and get them off mediocre hands.

On the flipside you want to sit to the right of a tight passive player. You can steal the blinds much easier with tight players and they are much less likely to raise their hands pre flop so you can see a lot more flops with mediocre hands. Also, tight passive players are much more likely to call a bet on the flop then re-raise, so if you have a drawing hand and you made a bet, you get to see more cards without paying anything extra for it. Due to their passive nature they don't like to get involved in big pots unless they have the nuts or something close to it. So you can more easily make river bets and get them off marginal hands making them think you have the nuts.

Popularity: 66% [?]

How much does pot odds affect your hand-to-hand play? Are you getting the pot odds to call a bet? This is a question you are constantly asking yourself at the table and becomes second nature after a while. Where pot odds becomes really useful is when you already have a lot of money invested in a pot, so even though you may think you don't have the best hand, if you have enough outs to make the best hand you may be getting the odds to make the call which would be profitable in the long term.
Here’s what I suggest as a first approximation for beginners.

1) Count how many ‘outs’ your hand has. Make sure to count only the outs that will give you a likely winning hand.

2) Know how much of an underdog you are based on the number of outs. There are a few numbers that come up quite often, so memorize those. You’ll be able to approximate others that you need on the fly. This will tell you that you’re an x:1 underdog.

3) Know how many bets are in the pot (y). You can count them as they’re put in – as the action progresses, increment your count.

4) If there are more bets in the pot than you are an underdog (if y > x), you have the pot odds to continue.

There are books with charts that convert ‘outs’ to ‘odds’ but I really don't think it's necessary.

If you want to figure it out yourself, here’s how:

There are 52 cards in the deck. You’ve seen 2 of them in your hand and either 3 or 4 of them on the board. That leaves either 46 or 47 unknown cards. Call this U.

You have G good cards that can help you (your ‘outs’). That leaves U-G = B bad cards that won’t help you.

The odds of hitting your hand are B/G:1.

For example, say you have a 4-flush on the turn. There are 46 unseen cards left. 9 of them make your hand. 37 of them don’t make your hand. You are a (37/9):1 underdog, which is 4.1:1. If there are 4 or more bets in the pot, you have a clear call.

Popularity: 40% [?]

Reading your opponents for the most part comes down to identifying what poker style they play with. Knowing what poker styles you are playing against will help you become a winning poker player because you can make adjustments in your play.

LAGs (loose aggressive) play many hands, very aggressively. Extreme LAGS are maniacs. They rely on luck and tend to have very big swings – they will occasionally have big wins, but more often have big losses. Their undisciplined play will tend to confuse you, which adds to their success when they’re running hot.

LAPs (loose passive) play many hands, very weakly (few raises, many calls) I call these players lambs (calling stations). This is by far the worst player. They see almost every pot and almost every street and almost never maximize a win (unless someone else is doing the betting for them). They could have the nuts and may very well check/call (which can be a bit confusing, but at least it’s not as costly as losing to a LAG!)

TAGs (tight aggressive) play few hands, but play them very aggressively (ideal style) players who can play this style well, tend to do very well – they typically maximize their wins and control their losses.

TAPs (tight passive) play few hands, but play them very weakly (lots of calling and folding) – also known as rocks, they tend to be winners, but fail to maximize their wins, but do minimize their losses. They will get very little action because they are so rarely involved in a hand that any one with half a clue will get out of their way. Watch out for the check raise from these guys.

So what poker style should you integrate into your game? This is a hard question to answer. I think it comes down to your natural style and whatever you are comfortable playing. Whatever style you are playing, you never want to become too predictable because the good players will pickup on it and you will get owned.

I like to play against LAGs when I am sitting to their left. If you are playing solid poker and have patience, you will always get them in a spot where you have a premium hand and they have overplayed a pair, and you will get all their chips.

Popularity: 58% [?]

No limit Texas Holdem is the most popular form of poker and is the game which made poker mainstream, with the World Poker Tour tournaments with millions of dollars in prize money broadcast on the telle.

While it can be tempting to just shove all your chips into the pot or in the case of online poker clicking on the all in button, you want to do so with a certain degree of judgment, and this is where No Limit Holdem strategy plays a part.

The number one goal in No Limit Holdem games is to double up by winning your opponents stack. The best way to win someone else stack is to move all in when you are confident that you have the best hand. But you want to move all in with a certain degree of deceptiveness. You do this by concealing the strength of your hand.

Set mining is very profitable because when you hit a set if there are no flushes or straights on the board, you can be pretty confident that you have the best hand. So if your opponent overplays top pair and top kicker, if you put in a re-raise they will most likely go all in and you should win the hand the majority of the time.

When getting involved in a hand in No Limit Holdem, you should always consider how deep your opponent's stack is. This will help you determine whether or not you should get involved in hand with medium strength hands, such as low and middle pockets. If you are in late position and there has been a raise and two callers, if you have 4-4 if the players already in the pot have deep stacks, then calling the raise would be a good idea because if you hit your set on the flop, you will more then likely win their stack. However, if they have relatively short stacks, then calling a raise with a mediocre hand is not a very good strategy because even if you do make a good hand, you probably won't get paid off in a big way.

Now let's talk about good starting hands. A-K is still generally a good starting hand however it's not usually a good idea to risk your entire stack pre flop with A-K. Most of the time you will be up against something like Q-Q so you are in a coin flip situation and you don't have the best of it. If you are a good poker player you should be more confident playing post flop where you can be surer whether or not you are ahead. No Limit Holdem is all about post flop play, not going all in pre flop.

Hands like A-Q and K-Q are good starting hands to make an open raise or call a raised pot, and hands like A-J off suit and K-J off suit are good hands to make an open raise however you probably don't want to call an raised pot with them. This is because other players involved in the hand have already shown strength and hands like this can often get you in kicker trouble because your opponents could have hands like A-Q or K-Q. So even if you do hit your top pair you can potentially lose your entire stack due to a worse kicker.
One of the biggest mistakes I see beginners make is overplaying their A-x or A rag hands. When playing in 6-max ring games, sure you want to be aggressive and open with a raise with any A hands, however you don't want to get involved in big pots when you don't have a good kicker because more often then not you will lose a big pot. You have to realize that with A hands, if the A hits the board, you will more then likely only win a small pot because your opponent will be scared off. And in the instances where you get action, the kicker comes into play, so if you have a hand like A-5 its no good.

Popularity: 37% [?]

Many players new to online poker think that bluffing shouldn't be a part of their game and that you should just wait for good cards. Any poker player with this mentality might as well give up the game now. Bluffing should be a part of your game, you just need to use it wisely so that it is believable and makes money for you in the long run. You can not always be expecting to pickup good hands so when your involved in poker sessions where you are not getting the best of the cards, you will need to bluff at the right moments if you want to be profitable.

Some players think that if you get caught bluffing the other players at the table will always call your bets from that point onward in the session. If you do get caught out bluffing once or twice will every bet you make from that point on get called or raised? This is a very important consideration you want to make because if you have lost the tight table image you were trying to portray at the table, you can use it to your advantage.

If you have attempted to bluff a few pots and haven't been successful, you can be sure that your table image at the table is very loose and aggressive. So you would be throwing money away if you were to try and bluff again without a premium hand. Use your table image to manipulate other players. If you pickup a premium hand make it look like a bluff when really you are betting for value, and you will get called down and win a big pot.

It is important to have variety in your game to create confusion with your opponents. You want to make sure you integrate bluffing and semi-bluffing in your game if you want to be a winning player.
An important factor to keep in mind when bluffing is to know when to use it. If the pot is big and it's a multi way pot with a number of players then it's more likely that the other players will not fold because there is more money to win. So you have to be sensible with the bluffs.

Big bluffs can be profitable when you are heads up or in a three-way pot. Generally speaking, you will want to be most aggressive with your bluffing strategy on the flop and less aggressive on the following two streets. Bluffing on the turn and river has less chance of being believable because the other players have already committed a significant amount of their stack to the pot, and if they called your flop bet you have more reason to believe they have something.

Your have to be able to recognize what your table image is and what other player's table image is at the table. Tight players are more likely to fold where as loose players will be much more likely to call.

Popularity: 100% [?]

Recognize what is the best possible hand

Evaluating your hand strength against your opponents is the single most important factor in Texas Holdem. When you know you have the best hand you want to make use of value bets, and when you know your hand is beat, even if you may have a strong hand you want to know when you are beat. When someone is holding the best possible hand is referred to as the nuts. And the nuts can change with every street. For example, let's say you have A10h and the flop comes 5,6,8 all hearts so you flop the nut flush. If the turn comes 7h and you make a bet and face a re-raise, you have to consider your opponent may have the 4h or 9h, which would make a straight flush.

When you have the nuts you should make nice size bets, usually about 2/3 of the pot so if your opponent has a drawing hand they need to pay to see another card. Where you can run into trouble is when you try and slow play a good hand and you have your opponent sucking out on you because they gave them free cards or they got to see additional cards too cheaply. By paying close attention to the board texture and recognizing when you have the best possible hand, you can avoid making costly mistakes.

Importance of position

Position is a huge thing in Texas Holdem. When you have position on the other players it means you are on the button and you get to act last. Acting last in a hand is a huge advantage because you get to evaluate the strength of the other hands before it is your time to act. For example, in a 6-max ring game if everyone limps into the pot with a raise, you have the knowledge that most likely every player wants to see the flop cheap and have pretty mediocre starting hands. You can consider a raise to try and win a small pot. What starting hands you play has a lot to do with position. When in early position you need to open with a raise with a much narrower range of hands then what you would do in late position. This is because you don't have the chance to evaluate the strength of the other hands so you could face a re-raise and be forced to fold your hand if your hand isn't very strong.

Don't overestimate suited starting hands

When you have two cards of the same suit it improves your hand, but the mistake many beginners tend to make is they overplay their suited hands. A flush is a very strong hand but the probability of getting a flush is quite low. I like to play suited connectors and suited high cards. But a hand like 24 suited is not a very good starting hand and you should probably just throw it away pre flop.
High cards are much better starting cards than low cards

The rank of cards is basically what Texas Holdem is all about. If you have QQ this is a very good starting hand but if a K or A hits on the flop, you are probably beat. You should play high cards much more aggressively then low cards, because if you hit top pair, you most likely have the best hand. For example, if you have KJ, and your opponent has 67, and both of you hit a pair on the flop, you have the better hand because you have the high cards.

Popularity: 46% [?]

Popularity: 49% [?]

Popularity: 32% [?]

Popularity: 14% [?]