Learn Texas Holdem Strategy

Learn Texas Holdem Strategy Rating: 9,4/10 5143 reviews
  1. Learn Texas Holdem Strategy
  2. Learn Texas Holdem Strategy Holdem
  3. Basic Texas Holdem Betting Strategy
  4. Learn Texas Holdem Strategy Games
  5. Basic Texas Holdem Strategy Reddit
  6. Learn Texas Holdem Strategy Rules

This is possibly the most important advanced Texas holdem strategy that you’ll ever learn. The best Texas holdem players in the world understand that if they can improve their game a fraction of a percentage it can mean huge returns in the long run. So they constantly search for any small edge they can possible find. The strategy is your overall game plan. There are basically 5 strategic areas that you should focus your attention on while you’re playing Texas Hold'em cash games. Tournament strategy for Texas Hold’em differs considerably from cash game strategy, and there are a host of other tips that determine how to play in tourneys. If you're already pretty comfortable with the rules of the game, head over to our Texas Holdem Strategy section and peruse our articles on more advanced topics which include: calculating pot odds, bluffing, playing shorthanded, and changing limits.

Table Of Contents

Ultimate Texas Hold’em is one of the most popular live and online casino games for poker players.

One big reason is that if you know what you are doing, the game will feature one of the lowest house edges of any casino game.

Half the battle is just knowing the basic rules of Texas Hold’em, particularly the hand rankings which are common in most poker games.

How about some Ultimate Texas Hold'em?

Head to this online casino for an exciting session of Ultimate Texas Hold'em Poker. Massive welcome bonus available!

About Ultimate Texas Hold’em

Ultimate Texas Hold’em was developed by Roger Stone of Shuffle Master and similar formats are also known under other names including Heads Up Hold’em distributed by Galaxy Gaming.

If you have learned the basic rules of Texas Hold’em, you will quickly pick up on how to play Ultimate Texas Hold’em with the hand rankings and each player holding two hole cards being the same in both games.

As this is a casino, the house will have an edge. Players should experience plenty of winning sessions, but unlike regular Texas Hold’em, players are competing against the house and not a player.

What you might not know about Ultimate Texas Hold’em is that if it is played correctly it has one of the lowest house edges among any casino game at around 2%.

Reasons to play Unlimited Texas Hold’em

  • Low house edge of around 2% when following basic strategy
  • Fun to play alone or with friends
  • Similar to Texas Hold’em
  • Can play for just a few minutes
  • Potential to win big

Read on to learn more about the rules of Ultimate Texas Hold’em and how to optimize your play to reduce the house edge to almost nothing.

How to Play Ultimate Texas Hold’em

Usually, you can play Ultimate Texas Hold’em at a casino with up to six players and a dealer (also known as the house).

The game utilizes a standard 52 card deck. Although online, you will find many heads-up games where you will compete one-on-one against the house.

Each player must post an ante and a blind before each hand begins. You will see posted minimums and maximums. Keep in mind that your bet must be the same for both of these and that it will also serve as a base for other bets as the hand progresses.

Therefore, we recommend when first getting your feet wet to bet as small as possible to further the power of your bankroll. You can always adjust with higher bets once you feel comfortable that you have optimized your game.

There are also optional side bets which can vary from casino to casino including the Trips bet you can place before the hand is dealt which we will get into later.

Two cards are dealt to each player and the dealer after the initial Ante and Blind bets are placed.

Remember, hand rankings are the exact same as Texas Hold’em.

Check out our detailed description of how to play Texas Hold’em to brush up on Hold’em hand rankings.

You can decide to bet three times or four times the Ante and place the bet into the Play box or check before the flop comes.

A flop is then dealt and you will have an option whether to bet two times the Ante bet or check once again.

The turn and river are dealt one after the other and you will have one last option on whether to place a bet equal to the Ante in the Play box or to fold the hand.

There is a bit of basic strategy that you should either memorize or have a chart with you while playing to best optimize when to bet in the Play box, when to check, and when to fold.

Players that folded after the river was dealt will automatically lose their Ante and Blind bet.

Those remaining in the hand will turn over their cards as will the dealer. If you have a better Texas Hold’em hand than the dealer you win the Play bet for the same amount as bet.

The Blind bet can also only be won if you have won the hand. Assuming this is the case, it is paid out on a sliding scale and can be worth as much as 50 to 1 for a straight flush. However, if you don’t have a straight or better, you will simply just get your bet back as a push.

Here is a look at the potential different payouts of the Blind bet which can vary slightly from casino to casino.

HandPayout
Royal flush500 to 1
Straight flush50 to 1
Four of a kind10 to 1
Full House3 to 1
Flush3 to 2
Straight1 to 1
All OtherPush

The Ante bet is a bit trickier. If the dealer doesn’t qualify with at least a pair, you will get your Ante refunded as a push. This is the case whether you had a better hand or not, as long as you didn’t fold your hand.

If the dealer qualified with a pair or better, you will need to beat the dealer in order to win this even money bet.

Feeling ready for some Ultimate Texas Hold'em?

Head to this online casino for an exciting session of Ultimate Texas Hold'em Poker. Massive welcome bonus available!

Best Ultimate Texas Hold’em Strategy

You should quickly get the hang of the rules of Ultimate Texas Hold’em by reading the rules above and potentially watching a few hands being played.

However, we don’t recommend that you hop right into Ultimate Texas Hold’em until you learn some basic strategy as it could turn out to be a nightmare to play based on gut feeling.

For example, if you decide to blindly bet four times your bet in the Play box every hand, you will be subject to a house edge of around 14%. Likewise, if you aren’t betting at the right times, you will also increase the house edge.

You should always bet the maximum allowed in the Play box before the flop when you bet. The following chart should serve as a guide to when you should place a bet in the Play box and when you should fold preflop.

*AKQJT98765432*
ABBBBBBBBBBBBB
KBBBBBBBBBBSSS
QBBBBBBBSSCCCC
JBBBBBSSCCCCCC
TBBBBBCCCCCCCC
9BBBBCBCCCCCCC
8BBBSCCBCCCCCC
7BBSSCCCBCCCCC
6BBSCCCCCBCCCC
5BBCCCCCCCBCCC
4BSCCCCCCCCBCC
3BSCCCCCCCCCBC
2BSCCCCCCCCCCC
  • B = Bet four times in Play box
  • C = Check
  • S = Bet four time in Play box if suited, otherwise check

The strategy gets a little easier if you didn’t bet preflop. You should bet two times on the flop in the Play box if you have two pair or better, a hidden pair, or a flush draw with a hidden ten or better. A hidden pair means that there isn’t a pair on the board and you are using one or more of your hole cards to create that pair.

River strategy can be particularly tricky. It is easy to memorize what to do but not always easy to make the optimal play in real-time.

Holdem

Place a bet of equal to your Ante bet if you have a hidden pair or better or the dealer has less than 21 outs to beat you. After some practice, determining how many outs the dealer has to beat you will become more second nature but take your time at first as it’s your money and the game typically doesn’t have a time limit with the exception of some multiplayer online games.

Side Bets

Side bets are usually a way for online and live casinos to extract a little extra money per hand, spin, or dice roll at extremely bad odds.

This isn’t necessarily the case in Ultimate Texas Hold’em with its optional Trips bets that you will see on just about every table.

It all comes down to the odds that they are paying on the Trips bet as it could be an under 1% advantage for the house under optimal conditions if you can find them.

Learn Texas Holdem Strategy

Your Trips bet can be a different amount than your Ante and Blind bets and is only paid if you wound up with trips or better. In just about every case you are paid 3 to 1 for trips or a set and 50 to 1 if you nail down the elusive Royal Flush.

What you should be looking for if considering to place a Trips bet is a bet table similar to below which gives the house less than a 1% advantage.

HandPayout
Royal Flush50
Straight Flush40
Four of a Kind30
Full House9
Flush7
Straight4
Trips/Set3
All Others-1

Other payout tables might look similar with a Royal Flush paying 50 to 1 and trips paying 3 to 1. However, some smaller differences in the middle of the pay table can make a big difference.

For example, the pay table below would give the house a more than 6% advantage and should be avoided at all costs.

HandPayout
Royal Flush50
Straight Flush40
Four of a Kind20
Full House7
Flush6
Straight5
Trips/Set3
All Others-1

There are other side bets that online and live casinos make available including hole card bonuses and bad beat jackpots.

In general, any side bet that isn’t the Trips bet gives the house a huge house edge and therefore should be avoided.

One exception might be in the case of progressive jackpots where the jackpot is high enough to make the house edge low and, in some cases, even give the player an advantage. One pitfall even here is that the jackpots are few and far between and thus will likely cause you money unless you hit at least one jackpot in your lifetime.

Conclusion

Ultimate Texas Hold’em is a fun online and live casino game that can be played whether you have a few spare minutes or want to grind a long session.

Learn Texas Holdem Strategy Holdem

The rules are easy to learn and before long it is possible to master the strategy of the game to reduce the house edge to approximately 2% in the base game.

While it isn’t likely you will become a long-term winner in this game without a bit of luck, it is more likely than many other games to have winning sessions and go on runs to win a chunk of change.

The promotion presented on this page was available at the time of writing. With some Casino promotions changing on daily basis, we suggest you to check on the site if it still available. Also, please do not forget to read the terms and conditions in full before you accept a bonus.

If you are looking for tips and advice to immediately fix your Texas Holdem game, you’ve come to the right spot. We provide tips, strategies, and advice on Texas Hold em poker that are designed to make a difference immediately. Having a proper and correct posture and outlook when playing Texas Hold em poker is imperative to one’s long-term success. To take care of one’s profit margins, a player should understand basic, intermediate and advanced Texas Hold em strategy.

Basic Texas Hold em Poker Advice

How To Count Outs – In Texas Holdem, the number of cards that will help a hand improve are known as outs. Find out how identifying and counting outs can help a poker player determine the odds of hitting their hand are, as well as how to determine if a drawing hand is worth chasing.

How to Calculate Pot Odds – This article on holdem strategy goes hand in hand with knowing how to count outs. Pot odds are compared to the odds of hitting a hand. It is paramount to know how to figure out pot odds in determining whether or not you are correct in continuing in the hand.

Intermediate Level Texas Hold em Poker Advice

Once the foundation for Texas Hold em strategy has been laid, players can begin exploring more difficult concepts in poker that are designed to transform a poker player into a winning one. Here, players will learn of specific tactics that will help them turn a profit at the poker tables.

Pot Control – Establishing and maintaining control of the pot is one of the best ways to drive profits at the holdem tables. Find out how to control the pot and dictate the pace of the Texas Holdem hand.

Semi Bluff – Players think they have to bluff when playing poker. While this is true, the semi-bluff is a far safer form of bluffing, as players are bluffing in that they do not have a made hand, yet they are drawing to what can potentially become the best hand. Learn all about semi bluffing profitably in poker.

Texas Holdem Playing Styles – We provide a detailed look at the various ways to play Texas Holdem poker by looking at the different playing styles and poker strategies one can employ at the poker table. There’s no one correct way to play and poker players must adjust their game and strategy to suit the situation and table conditions.

Playing Texas Holdem from position – We look at playing from position and examine the concepts of relative and absolute position, as well as discuss the various strategies that should be employed from each position in Texas Hold em poker.

Blind Stealing – Everything you wanted to know about stealing blinds in Texas Holdem Poker, but were afraid to ask is discussed in detail in this article about stealing the blinds. Find out how and when to steal blinds, as well as what to do if someone attacks your blinds.

Advanced Texas Hold em Poker Advice

Thinking like a pro – When playing poker with the pros, it is important to understand how they think and view the game of holdem. Moreover, it is safe to assume that the pros are such because they are good at the game. Thus, thinking like they do in poker can assist the players in viewing the game of Texas Hold em properly and profitably.

Basic Texas Holdem Betting Strategy

Multi Tabling – Our guide to multi-tabling in online poker discusses the pros and cons of playing more than one table at a time, as well as discusses tips and tricks to playing multi-table Texas Holdem poker. Whether you are a seasoned multi-tabling vet or considering playing more than one poker table at a time, this is a must read.

Bankroll Management – Use this as your online guide to managing your poker bankroll. Here, we discuss common bankroll mistakes, and tips to improve your bankroll management skills.

Poker and Life

David ‘Orange’ Yee looks at playing poker online and travel in his excellent two part guide. In the first part of the guide he access these benefits of playing poker and travelling as a pro poker player. Then in his second guide he looks at what you need while travelling and where you should consider going.

David ‘Orange87’ Yee’s Poker Strategy

In this section we will present the poker musings of online professional David ‘Orange’ Yee who approaches poker in a highly technical, logical, and analytical fashion. David will present some common poker situations and analyze them to a degree of a poker pro.

  • In poker we tend to play multi-way pots in similar fashion. After-all, how many ways can we play the pot? This guide looks at an Alternative Way to Playing Draws Out of Position On the Flop in Multi-Way Pots. We hope this will get you thinking about your game in a more ‘outside the box manner’ as it is the main theme of the poker strategy on this site.
  • Deep stacked poker is amazing to play, especially in a world where 100bb poker is becoming somewhat standard. When playing with 200bbs+ each decision becomes less standard and mistakes are punished more severely. With more money at risk, those who adapt to deep NLHE better will yield greater returns versus those who succumb to pressure whilst holding a big stack. Read Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 of David’s thoughts on Deep-stack No Limit Holdem play.
  • There are times in poker where we take what we call a ‘standard’ line in common situations. Although in poker no two hands are ever the same, there are quite a number of hands that play out in similar fashion. We play all these hands as ‘standard’, maybe without even realising it. It is probably that our opponent does the exact same too. Okay, let’s step back and consider some changes. One important aspect to consider is gaining more value by under representing our hand. There are multiple complementary benefits to this (apart from the extra value) including the advantage of being a non-standard player and always have your opponent in the lurch about what you are going to do.
  • Going with the theme of thinking outside the box, let’s look at our calling range on the flop (in position). Say we flop a monster draw in and our opponent bets. Why do we always raise? Or if we ask someone they say ‘oh that’s standard raise’! In this article Opening Your Flat Calling Range in Position with Stronger Draws we look at the advantages of just calling on the flop. Not only does it pose advantages in this initial hand but it also benefits us the next time our opponent bets into us on a draw heavy flop.
  • There comes a time in a poker players career that he/she considers coaching or getting help to improve their game. Even the top poker players get some form of coaching, or at least spend a lot of time discussing and analyzing hands with like-minded players – after-all two heads are better than one. Part one of a two part series is a detailed discussion on poker coaching and includes everything you need to know before delving into the world of poker training. Part two of the series looks further into poker coaching and poses the question :- Am I ready for a Poker Coach?
  • Every aspiring poker player wants more and more information. They want to learn all they can as fast as they can! Sometimes forking out for a training site subscription or a private poker coach is not always an option so players search the internet for any worthy sources where they can add to their current knowledge base. In this article; What External Resources to Improve As a Poker Player? we look at the best resources from across the web where you can comfortable find invaluable information for free. The Internet proves as a better medium for learning poker strategy as outdated ideas and concepts can be updated easily opposed to hard copies for poker books.

Texas Hold em Poker Tournament Advice

In our Introduction to Online Poker Tournament Strategy article, we look at the different poker strategies involved in the various stages of an online Texas Holdem Poker tournament. Here, the tournament poker player will learn about the proper strategy to employ across the various stages of a MTT.

Texas Hold em Tips & Advice for New Poker Players

So many poker shows on television glorify the game of Texas Hold em. We see young people gambling hundred of thousands of dollars every day at internet poker sites. With all the media attention poker has received in the last few years, it has been promoted to become a get rich quick scheme – but this just is not true. There are people who have become millionaires from playing poker, but these people have worked hard for their money. It is said that poker is the hardest way to make an easy living. What this means is you can make millions a year off poker but you also have to work hard for it.

New Player Tip #1 – Play, play, play!

When learning the game, you should try to play as many hands as possible. Many new players will spend too much time reading and not enough time playing. This is not saying that you should not be reading strategy articles; in fact, it is recommended to read Texas Hold em strategy to improve your game. As soon as you learn a new poker concept, you have to go and experiment with it at the Texas Hold em tables. It is no good knowing everything in theory but not knowing how to apply it in real Texas Holdem games; top online pros will play over one million hands a year. This should definitely be a sign that playing as many hands as possible will help you keep improving.

New Player Tip #2 – Always practice good bankroll management

One of the first concepts a new player should grasp when it comes to Texas hold em is bankroll management. A way to demonstrate this point is to think, if you have your whole bankroll on one table and you get unlucky on the turn of a card you lose everything you have to play with meaning you cannot play poker anymore. There are many articles that will go into bankroll management in much more details but for no limit Texas holdem a good place to start is never play anymore than 5% of your bankroll at any one table. This will protect you from the run of bad variance you are likely to have if you play a lot of poker.

Managing NL Texas Hold em Bankroll for Cash Games

Learn Texas Holdem Strategy Games

This bankroll method is the first most players will learn when starting to play Texas hold em Poker. All you have to do is keep at least 2000 big blinds for the blind level you want to play. So using a basic example if you want to play at $0.05/$0.1 you would need at least $200 dollars in your bankroll. If you are very comfortable at a certain level and you are confident you can outplay to competition you may be able to drop this rule to 1500-2000 big blinds but as you start to move up above $0.25/$0.5 it would be advisable to keep at least 2000 big blinds in your account and then move down a level if you drop below this.

Managing a Poker Bankroll Using the Chris Ferguson Method

For those of you that don’t know, Chris Ferguson is a renowned pro with widespread success throughout the poker world. Using the bankroll method that will be explained in this section of the article Chris managed to successfully turn $1 into $20000. The idea of the method is to always have 20 buy-ins at the level you are playing in a cash game. However Chris didn’t buy in for the full amount he bought in for half the maximum buy in, so at NL 10 he bought in for 5$ and made sure he had $100 in his account at all times. When you drop below 20 buy-ins you must move down your limits so you have the 20 buy-ins needed at your limit. This bankroll method means that you will be switching between limits a lot more often than the classic bankroll method so only use this method if you feel you will be confident with frequent limit shifts.

Basic Texas Holdem Strategy Reddit

Every pro at some point in his career experienced bad variance but the difference between a pro and an amateur player is that he has managed his bankroll so he can ride out the bad variance and wait for the upswing afterward. Which ever method you choose make sure you stick to it, and if you do there is no reason why you will ever have to deposit more money in poker again.

Learn Texas Holdem Strategy Rules