Poker Basics

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 […]

Types of poker games fall into three main categories: community card games like Texas Hold’em and Omaha, stud games like Seven-Card Stud and Razz, and draw games like Five-Card Draw and Badugi. Each category uses […]

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, are the third-best starting poker hand in No-Limit Hold’em: only pocket aces and pocket kings have you beat before the flop. I have reviewed thousands of student hands […]

Pocket kings is the second-best hand in No-Limit Hold’em: only pocket aces has you beat before the flop. I have coached players on this hand for years, and the mistakes almost always come from one […]

How to play pocket aces optimally is one of the first things I teach new students, because most players assume they are already doing it correctly. Pocket aces win money in the long run no […]

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 […]

A simplified game tree Multi-street poker is a complex game, and with four streets of betting, and a huge number of possible bet sizes available, no-limit Texas Hold’em can get absurdly complicated. But I’m going […]

Game selection in poker is the process of choosing which table, game, or stakes gives you the highest expected profit based on the opponents present rather than habit, ego, or proximity to an open seat. […]

It’s hard to make an extremely strong poker hand. I mean, in hold’em it’s hard to make a strong hand. In 5-card PLO, it’s really easy – the problem is that your opponents find it […]

The best places to play live poker in the US span seven states, from Nevada’s 60-plus poker rooms and the World Series of Poker to California’s massive cardrooms and the booming private club scene in […]

The odds of flopping different poker hands vary far more than most players realize: unpaired hands make one pair on the flop about 29% of the time, while flopping a flush with suited cards happens […]

Maintaining a poker face in live poker means controlling your expressions, body language, and verbal cues so that opponents cannot read the strength of your hand. Whether you are bluffing or betting for value with […]

A set is three of a kind made with a pocket pair: you hold two matching hole cards and one of that rank hits the board. Trips is three of a kind made with one […]