How To Win Texas Holdem Poker

With the way Texas Holdem is taking over card tables everywhere, it's a good idea to learn how to play and learn how to win if you want to impress your friends, have fun or make some money at a fun and interesting game.

To win Texas Holdem, a person needs to know more than just how to play the game. He or she needs to know about strategy.

Many poker experts and players will tell you that a tight and aggressive strategy is the only way to play Texas Holdem. This involves playing relatively few hands and betting and raising often when you do play.

This strategy, however, will only work if you understand hand-ranking. There are 1,326 distinct possibilities when it comes to the two hole cards a player can be dealt in Texas Hold'em. However, since suits are only relevant for flushes, many of these possibilities are irrelevant. So, that reduced the number of possibilities a player needs to know about to 169 possibilities.

One type of hand to get to know is a pocket pair or a wired pair. This is when you are dealt two of any card. For instance, two jacks, two aces, or two nines.

The hands which are not pocket pairs are either suited hands or unsuited hands. Suited hands are two cards of the same suit and unsuited hands are two cards of different suits. For instance a suited pocket might be an ace and a seven of spaces and an unsuited pair might be an ace of hearts and a seven of diamonds.

Generally, the higher the cards in the pocket and whether they are paired or suited increases the hand ranking. However, sometimes even a highly ranked pocket can turn into nothing after the flop, turn or river.

Some professional players are successful using other strategies as well. While most experts insist on only playing premium starting hands, others suggest a looser betting strategy. Ultimately, this is up to the player.

While some experts disagree on betting strategy, most agree that position is an important element of the game. Players who act later in a hand, have more information than those who act earlier. As a result, players often play fewer hands from earlier positions and more from later positions. This does have a disadvantage since a person's opponents can gain clues to his or her hand based upon the bets made after the flop, the turn and the river.

Those who play no-limit or fixed limit version of hold'em, play different strategically, and many players who excel at one, do not excel at the other. For instance, because of the limit placed on betting in limit games, players cannot bluff as successfully. And in no-limit poker, new players often lack the courage to make the larger bets.

Strategy can also vary between games with lower stakes and games with higher stakes. Small stakes games usually have more players participating in each hand and can have very passive playing strategies or very aggressive raising strategies, compared to high stakes games, which are more stable.