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 […]

ICM poker, or the Independent Chip Model, is a mathematical framework that converts your tournament chip stack into a real dollar value based on the remaining prize structure and each player’s stack size at the […]

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 […]

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 […]