Poker Basics

In plain English, the bubble factor shows how much worse it is to lose your stack than it is to win someone else’s near the bubble. It explains why you should avoid certain marginal spots, […]

The big blind is one of the most misunderstood positions in poker. Many players treat it as a forced loss, defending too passively, folding too often, or calling without a plan. Others swing too far […]

If you have spent most of your time at the poker tables playing cash games, you have probably never had to think about how much value you were winning or losing by making certain plays. […]

The small blind is the most difficult position in poker. You act first postflop, you’re forced to invest money preflop, and every decision you make is magnified by positional disadvantage. Yet many players approach the […]

Multiway pots are among the most misplayed situations in small and mid-stakes games. While many players instinctively tighten up or “play scared” when more opponents enter the pot, others make the opposite mistake by overvaluing […]

SPR, short for Stack-to-Pot Ratio, is one of the most essential concepts in Texas Hold’em. It represents the effective stack ratio to the pot and indicates how deep players are, informing postflop gameplay strategy. SRP […]

4-betting is one of the most powerful weapons in Texas Hold’em, yet it remains one of the least understood. Many players see 4-bets only as “aces or bluffs,” or they avoid 4-betting altogether unless they […]

In Texas Hold’em, few decisions matter more than how you respond when facing a bet. Every bet your opponent makes forces you to make an immediate judgment about the strength of ranges, incentives, and the […]

Now that you understand preflop position and stack depth, along with preflop ranges, it’s time to explore effective preflop bet sizing. Bet sizing is one of the most powerful tools in poker because it controls […]

Once you understand position and stack depth, the next step is mastering preflop ranges. A range is simply the group of possible hands a player might have in a given situation. Every time you make […]

In the relentless pursuit of poker excellence, it’s often not the flashy plays or dramatic bluffs that separate the long-term winners from the losers. More often, it’s the hidden leaks that slowly erode your winrate […]

From classic draw games to exotic variations and Texas Hold’em, the poker world offers a rich variety of different types of poker games for players to explore. In this guide, we introduce the most popular […]

According to world-famous poker Vlogger Brad Owen, there is no right way on how to play pocket Jacks, and that tells you a lot about how tricky this particular poker hand can be. Of course, […]

Pocket Queens, also known as the Ladies, is the third-best starting hand in all of poker, and it’s a hand you want to play aggressively and put a lot of money into the pot with.  […]

Pocket Kings is the second-best hand in all of Texas Hold’em, yet one that is so often misplayed by a great number of players. Playing pocket Kings can seem easy when seen on TV, but […]

Whether you are a seasoned poker professional or a recreational player who enjoys the game and plays mostly for fun, looking down at pocket Aces is a special feeling.  At that moment, you know you […]

Serious poker players spend a lot of time figuring out what their hourly rate is. It’s $X/hour or Y BB/hour or Z BB/100. I try to avoid that sort of thinking because it doesn’t make […]

Consider the following thought experiment: suppose you are playing heads-up no-limit Texas Hold’em against an opponent who has essentially identical skills as you. Setting aside any ethical concerns for the moment, let’s further suppose that […]

Setting the stage Invisible to me behind the dealer, in the #1 seat, is Carl. Carl doesn’t believe much in folding before he sees the three cards in the middle of the table. He doesn’t […]

Here’s a hand about value betting aces that comes from the PokerCoaching Discord cash discussion channel. Our hero, Ibney, is in the hijack position in a live $1/$2 NLHE game. The UTG player opens to […]

It was a pretty bad poker session in my $3/5 game. My pairs didn’t flop sets, my draws didn’t arrive, but the other people’s draws did arrive. Or maybe they didn’t arrive, but I wasn’t […]