Texas Holdem Strategy – Solid Foundations – Part 1

by: Lou Krieger

In the beginning, we were all bad players - you, me, the guy winning all the money at your table tonight, as well as every player who has ever won the World Series of Poker. We were all bad. Once upon a time David Beckham couldn't bend it, Barry Bonds couldn't hit, and Kobe Bryant couldn't dunk. They were beginners too, and guess what: They were bad - terrible, even. Raw talent? Sure, they were blessed with an abundance of raw talent, but they all had to work long and hard to refine it.

So don't bemoan your current skill level as a poker player. You can improve, and you will if you're willing to pay the price. Every good poker player has been where you are now, and they've improved. To be sure, some accomplished their goals faster than others; some progressed by leaps and bounds, while others have taken baby steps, one after the other, until they reached their goal.

You can do the same thing. You do have some innate potential as a poker player, and if playing winning poker is important, you need to build a foundation that will help you reach your potential as quickly as possible. Everyone who has progressed from neophyte to journeyman to expert to superstar shares one trait in common. They built a solid foundation, and that foundation allowed them to spread their wings and fly. And fly they can. But in poker, as in life itself, you can't fly until you've built a rock-solid foundation and mastered the fundamentals. If you're still grappling with fundamentals, you're not yet ready to fly. But once those fundamentals are imprinted on your poker consciousness and you can execute them instinctively, then, and only then, can you think about digressing from these basics and improving.

When you listen to great jazz musicians, you are hearing improvisation at its best. That improvisation, however, is based on a solid grounding of music theory. Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, the Modern Jazz Quartet, Sonny Rollins, Gerry Mulligan, Charles Mingus, Thelonius Monk: These jazz giants are masters of improvisation, but their innovation and creativity stood on a platform of musical theory, knowledge of time signatures, an understanding of harmony, skill in ensemble playing, and an ability to use rhythm to underpin melodic themes and harmony. Without possessing these basic skills, innovation would not have been possible. The price wasn't cheap, either. It took lots of playing, lots of years, and more clubs, sessions, and after-hours joints than they would want to count. But the product was sweet, free-flowing music: riffs that seem to possess a life of their own, springing unbounded from horns, keyboards, and strings, and filling the night with magic.

Poker is no different; neither for that matter is most of life. When you see an expert make what you consider to be a bad, even amateurish mistake, consider this: He probably knows the book move like the back of his hand. Why did he deviate? While he could be on tilt, it's more likely that he is deviating to practice deception. His take on that confluence of events - the players, the action, the cards, the texture of the game - convinced him that the move he made was for the best. However, he had a rock-solid base of technique to fall back on - then deviate from - based on his assessment of the situation at hand. Without that mastery of basic poker skills you have no assurance that you are making the best play. In fact, most of the time you will be making a bad play, or at least a play that has a poorer expectation than the textbook play.

Starting Standards

Once you've chosen the best game, and selected the best available seat at that table, what's important to winning play? Since earlier decisions tend to be more important because subsequent choices are often predicated - or sometimes obviated - by earlier decisions, then a key to any form of poker is deciding which hands you will start with.

Hand selection is one of the most important keys to winning. Most players play too many hands. I'm not referring only to beginners. There are players who have played for years, and the single most important flaw in their game is that they still play too many hands. Some poker players have it all wrong. They examine their hands looking for reasons to play. Dealt a 6-6/5 is seven card stud with three face cards to act after you, or a 9-7 in hold'em with two other players active and three yet to act, most players will look for reasons to continue playing those hands. After all, the majority of poker players are recreational players.

They are not playing poker to make their living; they play to enjoy themselves - and much as they'd have you believe their goal in playing is to win money, that's really secondary to their main objective: having fun. The difference between a player who has come out to have fun and another who is playing to win money is that the recreational player will look for reasons to play marginal hands and to continue playing them even when subsequent betting rounds are fraught with danger. The money player will look for reasons to release hands. He will avoid unnecessary danger, and dump his speculative hands whenever the potential reward is overshadowed by the risks.

Deciding which starting hands to play in poker is like any other form of investment decision you're confronted with on a daily basis in real life. Whether it's buying a pair of shoes or investing in mutual funds, you can make the decision on whim and whimsy or you can look for an opportunity that provides the best return for your investment.

Face it; you go through life looking for the best bang for the buck in almost everything you do. Poker is no different. There are hands where the return on your investment is positive, and others that will cost you money in the long run. In the heat of battle you don't have the time to assess every hand as though you're seeing it for the first time and deciding whether to play. You should have made these decisions long before you hit the table. That's why standards are critical. If you incorporate solid starting standards into your game you are light years ahead of any opponent who has not done this - never mind how long he's been playing or how much experience he may have in other phases of the game.

Real life is no different. When you walked into the bank looking for a car loan, the loan officer examined your income and debts and determined whether you would be able to make those monthly payments. He didn't make this decision in a vacuum, either. He had standards: a ratio of income to monthly expenditures. That ratio, along with your credit history and job stability gave him the parameters to decide whether you were a worthwhile risk. What if you can't qualify? There are always other lenders out there with lower standards, but they charge more.

Here in Southern California where owning a car is mandatory, there was a dealer whose late-night TV ads used to say: "You don't need a job. You don't need any credit. We'll finance you as long as your intentions are good!" Needless to say, anyone who bought a car there had access to credit - albeit at terms a loan-shark would envy. It's just another case of the risk balancing the reward. It's everywhere. You can't escape standards - in life, or in poker.

Another real benefit that accrues from developing starting standards for your poker hands is that these very standards provide a basis for deviation, but only under the right circumstances and conditions. Those conditions and circumstances are impossible to recognize - and therefore capitalize on - unless you've developed standards and incorporated them so completely into your game that they are second nature to you. Only when that's been accomplished can you hope to find those very few exceptions that allow you to profitably deviate from them. What does that mean in real terms? It's simple. There are times when you can play hold'em cards like Kh-2h, or 8d-7c in middle position, and knowing when, of course, is part of the art of poker. It requires knowledge of the game's texture, the playing style of your opponents, your table image at that moment, and the cards you're holding, as well as those that may have been exposed. There's no cookbook to guide you through these close-call situations. Sound judgment comes with experience and poker know-how, and the ability to make the right choices in these situations is what separates the great players from the good ones.

Selection and Aggression

Winning poker requires selectivity and aggression. Any top player will tell you this, and every credible poker book emphasizes this concept. If you have any doubts, consider the need to be selective. If you don't think selectivity is important, picture someone who calls every hand down to the bitter end unless he sees that he is beaten on board. That player would win a lot of pots. In fact, he would win every pot that it's possible to win. He'd never be driven off the winning hand by bets and raises, nor would he ever be bluffed out of a pot. His opponents would soon discover that it never pays to bluff him, and they'll soon stop bluffing whenever he's in the pot. Of course, every time they had the smallest edge, they'd bet into him, knowing that he would call with the worst of it. These value bets would soon relieve our hero of his bankroll. If you doubt me, just play every hand and see how long your money lasts.

If selectivity is clearly correct, what about aggression? Consider the passive player. He seldom bets unless he has an unbeatable hand - and you don't hold the mortal nuts all that often. More often than not you'll find yourself in pots where you believe, but aren't absolutely certain, that you have the best hand. Even when you are 100 percent certain that your's is the best hand at the moment, you might recognize it as one that can be beaten if there are more cards to come. This occurs more often than you might realize. Suppose you have Jc-Ts, and on the turn, the board shows 9h-8d-7h-Qc. While you have the best hand now, you could lose if a heart falls on the river and completes a flush for one of your opponents. If your opponents keep checking and calling, one of them might well be on a heart draw. The worst thing you can usually do is give your opponent a chance to draw out at no cost by letting him have a free card. After all, with a free card there is no risk, only the potential for a large reward if a miracle card falls giving him the best hand.

Here's another example. You hold Ac-Ks, and for the sake of this scenario we'll imagine you knew with absolute certainty that your opponent held Ad-Th?? At the turn, the board was As-Jd-Kd-8c? Your opponent is drawing at four cards that can beat you. If a queen comes on the river he will make a straight and beat your two pair. If you give him a free card he risks nothing, yet will win whenever one of those four queens falls on the river. With 44 unknown cards in the deck your opponent is bucking 10-to-1 odds. He is a real longshot. But if you don't make him pay for the chance to draw out on you he stands to lose nothing and gain all.

Now imagine you're playing that same hand, but this time it's no-limit. You bet $2,500 into a $500 pot. With the same odds against your opponent it certainly doesn't pay for him to risk $2,500 to win $3,000. It only pays for your opponent to chase that elusive queen if the pot offers a payout in excess of those 10-to-1 odds against hitting his hand. In fact, one of the key strategic principles of no-limit play is using the size of your bet to manipulate the odds the pot offers your opponent. In this example, by making a big enough bet, you can effectively prevent your opponent from contesting the pot.

But in a fixed-limit game all you can do is bet - or try for a checkraise - in order to manipulate the odds your opponent will have to overcome in order to beat you. Since giving a free card is a terrible play, and manipulating the pot odds so that it clearly doesn't pay for your opponent to try to draw out on you is a good play, being as aggressive as you can with the best hand in a fixed-limit game is the proper play most of the time.

We'll look at more in Part 2 of this series.