Poker Strategy - No-Limit Texas Hold'em

No-Limit holdem is game of general strategy, basic tactical skills useful in all forms of poker, and a game of intense psychology.

Let's first talk general strategy. When you enter a No-Limit ring game, you need to know two things before you can really expect to roll in it:

1. Who are my opponents?

2. How many hands go to a showdown?

Types of opponents:

Generally, people speak of four types of players: tight passive, tight aggressive, loose passive, loose aggressive. The first modifier characterizes the number of hands the person plays while the second describes the player's betting style. I think for No-Limit holdem, loose aggressive should be divided into two parts: action-seekers and solid players. Let's go through each of these types of players.

Tight-passives: These people do fine in a limit game, but they won't make much in a No-Limit game. The only way these people will win is when they pick off bluffs, otherwise they won't get the value out of their hands that they should. When against these players:

1. Bluff at the flop a lot. Put in a raise preflop and bet at the flop no matter what calls.

2. Fold when they represent a hand. If they bet a little, they're probably on a draw. So stick with your hand if you got something. If they bet a lot, they got something good.

3. Take advantage of your control. Don't go wild with your bluffs though. Fold preflop when you have nothing. But raise when you have a good hand and go for the kill at the flop. If you miss the kill, give up. But when you have something, milk him for everything it is worth.

Essentially, you can quickly tame these players into being calling/folding stations. And if he is making money against you while being a calling/folding station, you are doing something seriously wrong. These players are common, and you will certainly play against quite a few.

Loose-passives: They have to hope that people continually bluff into them because these people have they will call frequently with the second best hand. This is a recipe for disaster at No-Limit. You don't see too many of these bad players at No-Limit games because they lose so quickly and run to Limit games.

Maniac loose-aggressive: These guys will buy a fair share of pots, but then will get themselves trapped by another aggressive player and will lose their stacks in one or two hands. What separates these from good loose aggressive is that they lack discipline? They love the action of No-Limit so much that they get themselves trapped too easily. These players are even more rare than loose-passives in my experience.

Strong loose aggressive: These guys seem like they are horrible maniacs, but in reality, they are a very dangerous form of player. These guys will certainly lose a lot of money in pots, but they also will buy a lot of pots and will win huge ones. The way these types of players win is mainly by getting a good read on the opponent and then making a well-timed bet.

My main tactic against these players is to trap them in their own game. I generally try to avoid having the pot escalate too much preflop unless I have aces or kings, and I generally try to not let them buy every pot. In other words, when I put in the raise preflop, I'll still often make a stab at the pot at the flop.

More importantly though, the way I beat these guys is to take them down at one big pot. Since these guys will play a lot of hands, especially short-handed, they'll often play hands that lend themselves to be second best hands. Once I catch them in this situation, I just have to make sure I don't let them go too easily.

Tight aggressive: this is my style and the style and the strategy that I'll teach. The tight-aggressive's main problems are that he may get chased out of a lot of flops early and that he may be too easily read. If I were to play against a clone of myself, I would hope to trickle him down bit-by-bit and hope to throw him off balance by doing so.

Showdown Percentage

This is a critical concept in No-Limit. Since No-Limit lends itself to bluffing, one can make a lot of money simply by stealing pots. However, this strategy obviously fails if everyone shows you down to the river!

Generally, before I play in a high-stakes game or start really getting hardcore into one, I pay attention to the number of hands going to showdowns. This is really easy to do on the Internet because you don't even need to watch the game. You just leave the window open, go eat a snack, go to the bathroom, whatever. Come back twenty minutes later and see what sort of game you are about to dive in.