Joseph Hebert wins WSOP's $10,000 No-Limit Hold-Em. Duration: 00:29. Joseph Hebert wins WSOP's $10,000 No-Limit Hold-Em World Championship at Rio in. Want to know the key to no-limit hold’em? Well, I won’t make you wait. Get your opponents to put their money in bad. For me, this is the key principle in no-limit hold’em.
- Hold'em comes in four betting structures: limit, no-limit, pot-limit and spread-limit. Limit hold'em is the most popular ring game structure found in live cardrooms, and is about equal in popularity to no-limit hold 'em.
- Poker: Texas Hold'em (No Limit) By Masque Publishing. Play two face down cards and the five community cards. Bet any amount or go all-in. Your Gaming History.
If I were teaching a new player to play no-limit hold’em, and my goal were to get this player up to a professional level of play, how would I do it? What would my lessons look like?
Let’s say I had only three months to do it. With most people, I will admit, it would be a tall order. The learning curve is steep these days, and I don’t think everyone could make it from zero to pro in that short a time.
I’d have to make compromises. I couldn’t try to cover every possible situation. I’d have to find the important bits and skip the rest.
I’d also have to tailor the lessons a bit to a specific type of game. The most important skills in some game types are not as important in others. With this in mind, here are what I think my top five lessons would be for a new player trying to beat the $2-$5 no-limit hold’em games in Las Vegas.
Lesson No. 1. Don’t limp into pots ever. And don’t call preflop three-bets unless you are trapping with an ultra-premium hand.
Limping into pots, calling the preflop raise, and then check/folding the flop when you miss is an enormous leak. It’s also one that nearly every player who hasn’t been specifically coached out of it exhibits.
In my opinion, most players would see an immediate improvement in their winrates if they simply refused to limp in with any hand, especially if they chose to instead fold most of these hands.
For most players, refusing ever to limp means playing much tighter, particularly from out of position. Until you’re already an established pro player, tighter is better.
Lesson No. 2. Don’t pay off big turn and river bets.
This lesson might be different in some types of games, but in the Las Vegas $2-$5 games, it’s easily a candidate for the single most important piece of advice. Do not pay anyone off. When someone makes a big turn or river bet or raise, your one pair hand (or whatever other hand you’re thinking about calling with) is a bluff-catcher. That means, in the great majority of cases, your opponent won’t be trying to make a value bet with a worse hand. Either you’re beat or your opponent is bluffing. And players in these $2-$5 games do not bluff often enough to make calling worthwhile.
So you don’t pay off. I know it can be frustrating to feel like you’re getting muscled out of a huge pot, but the fact is, most players in these games do very little muscling. They try to make hands, and then they bet the hands they make. A big bet usually means a big hand. You don’t need to call to find out for certain.
Lesson No. 3. Your opponents will limp into pots, call raises, and check/fold flops. Take advantage of this weakness by raising lots of hands with position, betting the flop, and often also betting the turn.
It’s a simple play, but it’s one that generates a very consistent profit in these games. Players play too loosely preflop, are too willing to call preflop raises after limping in, and are too willing to check/fold the flop or turn if they miss. With many players, you can ignore your cards and raise the limps, bet nearly all flops, and bet most turn cards as well.
Say two typical players limp in a $2-$5 game. You raise to $25 on the button. Both limpers call.
The flop comes 10 8 2. They check, and you bet $50. One player calls.
The turn is the 5. Your opponent checks, you bet $120, and he folds.
In this scenario, and in many like it, it doesn’t matter what you have. Your opponents are beating themselves by playing call/call/fold so often. All you have to do is put the bets out there and let your opponents run repeatedly into the brick wall.
Yes, there is some nuance to this, and some boards are better bets than others. But against many opponents at the $2-$5 level, most flops, turns, and even rivers are good bets. Keep betting until your opponents prove to you that they won’t beat themselves by folding too much.
Lesson No. 4. With value hands, don’t try to blow opponents out of pots. Instead, play most value hands with the goal of keeping a player in through the river.
Value hands — hands like top pair, two pair, or any other hand you think is a favorite to be best — lose their value when all your opponents fold. If you win without a showdown, you might as well have been holding 7-2. (See Lesson No. 3.) With your value hands, you generally want opponents to get to the river.
Most players like to see showdowns if they feel like they can see them without losing too much money. No one likes to fold and think, “What if I was good?” If your opponents get to the river, often it’s an easy sell to get them to call a final value bet (as long as you don’t make it too big).
Calling these value bets is one of the biggest mistakes that $2-$5 players make. (See Lesson No. 2.) Allow your opponents to make this mistake.
Most players try to end hands early when they feel like they have the best hand. “Don’t want to get drawn out on,” they think. But this is backward thinking. End hands early with strong bets when you have nothing but a weak draw. Allow hands to reach showdown when you actually have something to show down! (Makes sense when I put it that way, doesn’t it?)
If I have top pair, I’d much rather get called for $30, $50, and $80 on flop, turn, and river than get called for $30 and then blow my opponent out of the hand with a $100 bet on the turn. The chance to win $160 with the hand instead of $30 outweighs the risk that I’ll get outdrawn.
Lesson No. 5. Think every hand about what strategies your opponents are using and how they’re thinking, and (almost) ignore the two cards in your hand.
I’ll put it bluntly. Most $2-$5 players beat themselves. They tend to play strategies that are extremely transparent, overly simplistic, and inflexible. You can beat some of these players simply by betting every time it’s your action (See Lesson No. 3.) You can beat other of these players simply by waiting for hands that beat top pair/no kicker and then making value bets. (See Lesson No. 4.)
Your job as a poker player is to identify the strategy each opponent is using and deploy a counter strategy. In many cases, the two cards in your hand become irrelevant. My experience is that the players that are always thinking about their hands never figure it out. It’s the players who are thinking on the next level that do. ♠
Ed’s newest book, Playing The Player: Moving Beyond ABC Poker To Dominate Your Opponents, is on sale at notedpokerauthority.com. Find Ed on Facebook at facebook.com/edmillerauthor and on Twitter @EdMillerPoker.
Want to know the key to no-limit hold’em? Well, I won’t make you wait. Here it is.
Get your opponents to put their money in bad.
For me, this is the key principle in no-limit hold’em. Get your opponents to put their money in bad. The more you can get them to put money in bad, the more money you will make.
Say you’re watching me play, and you see me play a hand a little funny. If you come up to me afterwards and ask why I played the way I did, nearly always my answer will boil down to, “I was trying to get my opponent to put money in bad.”
I find most other players don’t think this way when they play, but I think it’s a very useful way to think.
Over the long term, everyone gets the same cards. Or, more accurately, there’s no way to predict or control who will get better cards over a period of time, and after a long enough period, the percentage of your results that you can attribute to luck as opposed to skill becomes quite small.
If everyone gets the same cards over the long term, then to generate an edge, you have to get your opponents to put too much money into the pot with the wrong cards. You need your opponents to put their money in bad. If this is the key to winning at poker, then by my thinking, it should be the principle that determines most of my plays.
Sometimes getting players to put money in bad is as simple as making a good hand, betting it, and getting called by worse. But as players become less willing to make dumb payoffs and simultaneously become more aggressive, you will have to work harder to get your opponents to put money in bad.
Give free or cheap cards to induce action on a later round.
Most no-limit players are very concerned about getting outdrawn. If they have a made hand and there are significant draws on board, you can count on these players to bet big to “protect their hands.”
I’m not nearly as concerned about getting drawn out on. It’s poker. It’s going to happen.
I’m much more concerned if my opponents play against me as if they could see my cards. When I have a good hand, they find folds. And when I show weakness, they find lots of bets. This is very bad.
I’d happily accept an extra chance to get outdrawn if it means that when I don’t get outdrawn, I’m more likely to get my opponent to put money in bad.
Here’s an example. Let’s say I raise to $15 preflop from middle position, and the relatively tight player in the big blind calls.
The flop comes A-9-4. I have A-Q. The blind checks, and I bet $25. He calls.
He’s probably got an ace, and I’ve probably got him outkicked.
The turn is a 7. The blind checks. If I make a big bet here, many tight, Vegas-type players will fold a hand like A-5 suited. They’ll figure that they are outkicked too often to try to call down.
So I check. It looks like I tried a continuation bet, got called, and then gave up on the turn. Many players will bet their ace on the river, and I can call or possibly even raise.
Instead of betting the turn and getting a fold, I give a free card on the turn to net an extra bet on the river. The river card could pair my opponent’s kicker, and I could lose because of it, but if I want my opponent to put money in bad, it’s the price I have to pay.
Overall, it’s better to have my opponent putting in bad money on the river than it is to lock up the pot on the turn (and have my opponent making a correct fold).
This type of tradeoff comes up all the time. Before you bet to protect your hand, think about two things. First, think, “What worse hands will my opponent call this bet with?” If you can’t think of any hands, then your opponent won’t be putting any money in bad. There’s often a better play.
So second, think, “If I make a play other than my normal bet – a check, a small bet, even an oversized bet – under what scenarios might my opponent put in bad money by the end of the hand?” In the above example, if you check the turn, your opponent might make a bad value bet on the river. Sometimes checking will induce a bluff on the river. Sometimes a small bet will induce a bluff raise. Occasionally an oversized bet will elicit a call where a normal bet wouldn’t.
Be creative. If you want action on your strong hands, think about how you might play a weak hand. Play your strong hand the same way. Don’t worry about getting outdrawn. Just try to get your opponents to put in more bad money than you do. That’s what makes you a long-term winner.
Induce bluffs and bluff-raises.
Players are getting more aggressive lately. With aggressive players, frequently the way you get them to put money in bad is to get them to raise in situations when you expect them to bluff. Then you simply snap them off and enjoy the spoils.
When are aggressive players likely to bluff? There are generally two ingredients: the aggressive player is sitting on a wide range of largely weak hands, and you show a measure of weakness.
What’s a wide range? You know how aggressive players sometimes like to raise the button every time it’s their turn? That’s a wide range. Whenever you play a good chunk of your preflop hands, you’re destined to be weak on most flops. (Just try playing half your hands and see how many top-pair-plus hands you make.) But aggressive players aren’t content to meekly fold their weak hands. They make plays for pots they think they can win.
So all you have to do is engage an aggressive player when they’re marked with a wide hand range and then show weakness. Check to “give up” on a pot. Make a small “blocking bet” with top pair. Trigger their, “I can win this pot,” sensor.
Or, even more sneakily, make a good-sized bet in a situation where you aren’t supposed to have a strong hand. For example, a loose player open raises, and you call in the big blind with K-J suited. The flop comes J-6-6 with a flush draw. Bet out fairly big, and watch your opponent holding nothing put you on a weak range and either float you or raise.
Final Thoughts
No Limit Hold Em Game Pogo
A student asked me recently about a hand, “So should I bet big enough to get my aggressive opponent to fold a flush draw so he doesn’t outdraw me?”
I replied, “No, you don’t want him to fold. You want him to raise his flush draw.” And that’s the key to no-limit hold’em. ♠
No Limit Hold'em
Ed’s brand new book, Playing The Player: Moving Beyond ABC Poker To Dominate Your Opponents, is on sale at notedpokerauthority.com. Find Ed on Facebook at facebook.com/edmillerauthor and on Twitter @EdMillerPoker.