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Just like in the other poker games, in Texas
Holdem you can face different kinds of play. Sometimes the game is loose and
juicy, but some are really tough. Luckily, there are some strategies and
tricks that’ll help you to win even in tough games with skillful and
aggressive opponents. Once you start out playing Texas Holdem, you’ll find
yourself in many loose games with number of players in preflop that have
truly weak hands and make a lot of foolish mistakes. The style of play
applicable in this situation is just to wait for good starting hands and hit
the the pot with an aggressive play. Playing this way you will miss a lot of
games folding poor hands, but in the long run your advantage over loose
players will be obvious. However, as you enter tough games, the same tricks
won’t work out anymore. In a tough Texas Holdem game all players are usually
skilled, there are just a couple or just a bit more players in preflop and
often there is a raise and re-raise preflop with lots of aggression and
tight play. In this kind of games, if you keep to the previous strategy,
your opponents will just avoid your raises and on the other hand, play
tightly and aggressively when you don’t have good cards, forcing you out of
the pot. In fact, your opponents will have all means to defeat you, while
you will have no means to beat them.
The following is a list of key tricks applicable in tough games:
The first thing you need to do in a tough Texas Holdem game is to protect
your blinds. Defending blinds is very important, because the rest of players
will raise with position more just to steal the blinds you post. They
mustn’t have premium hands for that, but though they are raising more, you
have to defend more. Blind play is the first adjustment you’ll make joining
a tough table and trying to figure out how to hit the pot. However,
protecting your blinds alone won’t win you the pot alone. Moreover, it can
actually make the situation even more difficult, if used alone. Your
opponents will raise your blinds, trying to force you play poor hands that
you wouldn’t really like to play, while they have an advantage over you,
because of their position at the table. That’s how instead of waiting for
good starting hand you are forced to play poor hands. There is a method to
counter this strategy, defending your blinds some, considering the potential
weakness of your position at the table and applying the same tactics against
your opponents. All you need to do is raise more hands in later positions
drawing out good players and forcing them to play poor hands too. Remember
that in Texas Holdem, as well as in the other poker games, your position
plays a significant role in success.
What makes a Texas Holdem game tough, is the smaller edge over your
opponents, so in order to win a tougher game, you have to exploit these
small edges. As we have already discussed, you can’t just fold poor hands
and wait for good starting hands to raise, because such hands won’t come
around frequently enough to dominate the table in the long run. Your allies
in this situation are your position and aggressive play. Duly combined, they
are extremely hard to defeat. For example, if you have an Ace and 8, one
position from the dealer’s button and all your opponents, except a player to
the right fold and this player raises, then you can conclude that though
this player was raising many hands at this spot, it is likely that your Ace
and 8 are at least on average as good as he might be raising with. All you
need to do is to three bet him, because it is now very difficult for him to
play against you. In fact you force him to flop a hand and your opponent has
absolutely no idea about your pocket cards. Your Ace and 8 appear to be
better than any King hands, Queen hands and sometimes even pocket pairs,
since in this situation your chances of hitting an Ace at the flop are
pretty good and even if you won’t flop anything good, you turn your
opponent’s logical thinking against himself by betting. Even for a skilled
player, it’s rather uncomfortable and mentally difficult to play well with
nothing good postflop against your re-raise. And in case if you completely
miss the flop and your opponent seems to be showing interest, you’ll be able
to get out of it with a minimal loss, since you have a better position.
Again, in Texas Holdem, your position is a very significant aspect of the
game, so you must start placing more emphasis on your position at the table.
Occupying a seat in the first half of the table and middle positions, you
should keep playing a regular solid Texas Holdem Poker. In late positions
you need to value your hands, on how your cards might fair against the blind
bets. With a hand like an Ace and 8, you’ll feel difficulties playing
against a large field, but playing against a couple of random hands it
figures to be ahead. Playing Limit Texas Holdem, don’t hesitate to three-bet
preflop more often than you do it in other Texas Holdem games. You do not
need to be sure that your hand is the strongest one to three-bet. You
wouldn’t want use three-betting only if you think that you can (and want)
attract more money into the pot preflop. Also, it has some other juicy
advantages. The extra bets you make, set you up well for the rest of the
hand, because it makes harder for the players, who post blinds to call, you
bust down the initial raiser and at the same time you ensure you have the
button. You must also understand that if you take such style of play too
fair, it will be a big hole in your game, while the key to success is
balance between several strategies applied depending on the current
situation at the table. The biggest part of the given Texas Holdem strategy
depends on your skillful play in any position. Play tightly – don’t waste
your attention for too many hands and especially the poor ones – you’ll get
busted after all. You must create an image of a solid player in order to
make your opponents fear your raises, because if you won’t – the rest of
players will never respect your raises. Raise poor hands sparingly and only
when you feel that other players have poor hands too. One more advantage of
this style of play is that when you finally hit a premium hand – you’ll get
a lot of action.
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