Texas Hold ’em — Your First Poker Game
INTRODUCTION
This is your first poker game. The four essentials I listed here are meant to help you get started.
There are many forms of poker, and you can win money at virtually all of them if you develop the right set of skills. However, Texas Hold ’em is the game of choice for the present and the future.
By choosing Texas Hold ’em, the professional poker player can win the most money with only a reasonable amount of risk. You win money at poker because of two important factors.
First, some of your opponents play badly. In extreme cases, they are literally giving you money. This seems to happen frequently in Texas Hold ’em since any two cards can win. However, random hands do not win often enough to show a profit, and when they do win, they frequently must be played cautiously, which also minimizes their profitability. Furthermore, some hands appear similar in strength to the non-skilled player but not so to professional players. For example, holding just an ace does not make your hand very strong. Yet players who do not understand these basic ideas seem to flock to Texas Hold ’em poker games.
The second reason you can win more money when playing Texas Hold ’em is that this form of poker offers numerous opportunities for the expert player to make expert plays that extract additional money from unsuspecting opponents.
FOUR ESSENTIALS FOR NOVICE POKER PLAYERS
Let us get started.
How do you start?
You need to know these four essentials:
1. That tight-aggressive play is a winning strategy.
2. POSITION strategy is crucial in poker.
3. You need to change gears and time your strategies.
4. If this is your first game , play only Group 1: AA, KK, QQ, JJ, AKs, until you feel comfortable with the poker playing environment.
If you sit down and play your first poker game, chances are it is the cash poker game as opposed to tournament poker. Chances are you are at the small stake poker games or medium stake poker games. I would recommend medium stake poker as your choice because I assume you have done your homework.
Techniques that extract the biggest profit in small games do not work in bigger games. The converse is even more true. There are two main reasons. The first reason is that the rake and the expected tip made the small games tougher to beat. Secondly, you do not want to pick up back habits.
You have already learned the basics from poker books or blog posts, and you know something about poker strategy. Winning strategy is playing tight and aggressive, while losing strategy is playing loose and passive.
A common question amongst beginner poker players is how tight or how loose should you play? And specifically, what percentage of hands should you play before the flop? This is a good question, because the answers will depend on whether you are a beginner player or an experienced players.
There are however a few guidelines you may want to follow when you are starting out.
In full ring cash games, you should be playing below 20 percent of hands. A tight player could be playing as low as 10 percent of hands preflop and could be a winning player at low to medium stakes. In most instances, you should be raising preflop. You should never open limp and if you are calling preflop you should know the reasons behind doing it.
However, what exactly is tight, aggressive poker as opposed to loose, passive player?
A tight poker player is simply one who does not play many hands. Not only is he selective about the hands he plays, but also the position from which he plays them. Remember, poker is a game of position. Your strategy varies according to your position — small blind, big blind, early position, middle position, late position. As a result of this careful approach, it can be assumed that this player has a reasonably good hand whenever he comes into the pot, as there is a limited set of two cards that he will play.
Conversely, a loose poker player is one who never literally assess his two cards. He will jump into just about every pot ready to gamble. It is hard to tell what he is holding, because it could quite literally be anything.
Aggressive play refers to the way in which a player plays his hands. An aggressive poker player will rarely limp into a pot, but will instead raise or even re-raise if the situation warrants it. After the flop an aggressive poker player generally proceeds with continuation bets and pursues the pot with full force.
Passive players rarely raise and simply call or limp into pots. Because they are timid they can often be knocked off pots by aggressive play as they are nervous when the action gets hot and stakes get high.
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So why is tight aggressive good, and loose or passive bad?
Tight players play premium hands, which have good expected value and simplify decision making. Because you are avoiding marginal hands, your poker playing will result in fewer costly mistakes, making you some profits on balance.
In addition, the other players at the table will learn to avoid tangling with you because you are generally playing premium cards. This give you the opportunity to pick up pots as the other players fold to your raises and continuation bets – allowing you to make well timed and profitable bluffs.
Unskilled or unobservant opponents may not realize you are playing strong hands, and will therefore pay you off when they get into a pot with you.
Aggression is essential because no one is going to give you their money – you have to take it from them. Therefore, without aggression you are going to struggle to win pots. Once you decide to become involved in a hand, you should also be ready to fight for the pot. If you do not, your opponents are going to notice your weakness and they will begin to take advantage of your playing style.
But realize that blind aggression is bad play. You need to adjust your aggression levels according to the type of table you are playing as well as how the board develop. For example, if your table is filled with passive players who continually fold to a raise, then this is an excellent spot to show aggression. However, if you have several highly aggressive players, then too much aggression could start a war. In addition, betting and raising when the board probably has you beaten is just outright stupid.
So make sure you have a good hand and a good table image before you show your aggressiveness, as marginal situations may cause you to lose money.
Another important skill a professional poker player must use is “changing gears”.
Your opponents are going to be watching you just as closely as you are watching them, and it does not take them long to pick up your tight aggressive style. Therefore, it is a good idea to keep changing your playing style to prevent them from spotting patterns that they can exploit. This will enable you to become a consistent winner.
If you keep changing gears, throwing in some loose play along with your standard tight aggressive style, you should be able to keep your opponents guessing and keep your profits at a maximum.
Understanding when to get aggressive and when to let go is fundamental to this style of play.
Tight aggressive poker is all about careful play that is geared to minimize your mistakes, while pushing your opponent to make them. By following this style and understanding when to change gears and when to apply deception, you will continually rack up good wins against the majority of the opponents you will face in cash games.
Now that you know about tight-aggressive, position and changing gears, your next question is how do you play your first poker game.
You may have seen a variety of starting hands suggested in groups, charts and tables, some of which are extremely complex and some of which are extremely simple. If you ask experienced poker players to list their favourite top five hands, the majority of answers will include the following:
Group 1: AA, KK, QQ, JJ, AKs
The reason that these hands are popular is because they have good equity and are normally quite likely to win a pot. Another reason is that these cards are generally considered to be relatively easy to play after the flop and should not get you into too much trouble.
Conversely, small pocket and medium pocket pairs are not on this list. They are a lot more difficult to play post-flop. Thus, you are prone to make costly mistakes.
In the book The Theory of Poker: A Professional Poker Player Teaches You How To Think Like One, 
This is why is important to play tight. The idea is to simplify decision making. Straightforward decisions result in fewer mistakes and therefore waste less money. Sometimes, you may fold hands which turn out to be winners, but it is better to make a small pre-flop mistake, than a big loss due to post-flop mistakes.
The ability to play marginal hands well differentiates expert poker player and professionals from the ordinary poker players. However, they are also not immune to costly mistakes. Play only premium hands and play tight aggressive. Your bankroll will grow.
CONCLUSION
Always remember that this playing style is not fail-safe. Tight aggressive poker play still has vulnerabilities that a good player will exploit. Nevertheless, it should definitely be part of your poker strategy.
If you would like to read further from here, this book is strongly recommended:
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