Odds Of Winning Texas Holdem

Your Texas Hold'em poker odds are given below for hitting a draw by the river with a given. The Odds are defined as the ratio of the number of ways not to draw the hand, to the number of ways to draw it. In statistics, this is called odds against. For instance, with a royal flush, there are 4 ways to draw one, and 2,598,956 ways to draw something else, so the odds against drawing a royal flush are 2,598,956: 4, or 649,739: 1. You Can’t Play Many Hands. I can’t count the number of new Texas holdem players that I’ve played.

I’m a winning Texas holdem player, but it took me many years and it cost me a lot of money to reach this point. I had to learn every sad truth there was about Texas holdem to figure out how to win.

Odds Of Texas Holdem Hands

I’ve put together a list of the 7 sad facts that you need to learn about Texas holdem first to help shorten your learning curve. It’s still going to be a long and painful journey, but there is light at the end of the tunnel.

1 – You Can’t Play Many Hands

I can’t count the number of new Texas holdem players that I’ve played against over the years. They almost all make the same mistakes. And some of them never learn from their mistakes no matter how long they play.

By far, the main mistake that new Texas holdem players make is they play too many hands. This is a bad habit for 2 reasons. I understand why they play too many hands. They want the action and think they can’t win unless they’re in the hand.

The first reason why this is a bad habit is because when you play too many hands it reduces the amount of money you have to put in the pot when you get a good hand. You must learn how to maximize the value of your winning hands and minimize the losses on losing hands. This starts by playing fewer hands.
The second reason why playing too many hands in Texas holdem is a bad habit is a matter of simple mathematics. If you join the pot with a better 2 card hand than your opponent or opponents, you have a statistical advantage over them.

In other words, starting with the best hand is more profitable in the long run than starting with a weaker hand. By reducing the number of hands you play, you make the hands you do play stronger. Fold every weak and questionable hand and wait until you have a hand that has a good chance to win.

2 – Even When You’re Right You Can Still Lose

Consider the following example: You’re playing no limit Texas holdem and have a straight after the turn. The board has 2 spades on it and it looks like your opponent is drawing to a flush. The pot has $400 in it and you bet $400 because you know you have the best hand right now.

Your opponent calls you bet so they can see the river. You played this situation perfectly because you have the best hand and you’re making your opponent pay a premium to draw to a flush.

A third spade lands on the river and you lose a big pot. You did everything right, but you still lost. This is a sad fact about Texas holdem. You can do everything right and still lose.

Continuing with this example, your opponent had 4 spades and needed the river to be a spade to win. The deck only has 13 spades, and 4 of them have been accounted for. Let’s say that you had 1 spade in your hand, so in truth there are only 8 cards in the deck that can beat you.

Even assuming that you know the value of the 4 board cards, your 2 cards, and the 2 cards in your opponent’s hand, this still leaves 44 possible cards to land on the river. You’re a huge favorite before the river, but there are still 8 out of 44 cards that beat you.

If you look at this another way in the exact same situation 44 times you win 36 times and lose 8 times. The 36 times you win you win a nice pot, but the 8 times you lose are painful.

3 – Steep Learning Curve

Don’t make the mistake of expecting to learn how to be a profitable Texas holdem player in a short amount of time. It simply doesn’t happen.

You have to put in 100’s or hours of study and play, if not 1,000’s of hours. You simply can’t take many shortcuts.

The truth is that there’s really not any reason to start playing Texas holdem if you aren’t committed to the long haul. If you’re not willing to invest 100’s or 1,000’s of hours into mastering the craft, you’re better off learning to play blackjack or something else.

The only reason to start playing real money Texas holdem is to learn how to win. If you’re not going to learn how to win you might as well play an easier gambling game. You’re going to end up with the same results.

4 – Some Players Never Improve

The sad fact is that many Texas holdem players never learn how to win. They either ignore their mistakes or refuse to try to learn from them.

If you want to learn how to win when you play Texas holdem, you have to learn from every mistake you make. Just because you lose a hand doesn’t mean you made a mistake. And sometimes you make a mistake and win the hand anyway.

Learn how to recognize when you make a mistake whether you win or lose, and then learn how to correct your mistakes so you don’t make them in the future.

This is how you become a winning Texas holdem player.

5 – Pot Odds Are Hard

If you don’t know what pot odds are, you’re lucky that you’re reading this article. Pot odds are 1 of the key things that winning Texas holdem poker players use, and it’s rare that a losing holdem player uses them.

I’m warning you now that learning how to use pot odds isn’t easy. But once you learn what they are and how to use them you’re going to profit from them every time you play poker for the rest of your life.

Pot odds are a way to compare your chances of winning a hand and the amount of money in the pot so you can decide if it’s more profitable to stay in a hand or fold. And there’s a straightforward mathematical way to do this.

Understand that straightforward doesn’t mean easy. But you can learn how to use pot odds with some work. Start doing some research to learn what pot odds are and how to use them right now. Then start practicing until you can use them without thinking about it.

6 – It’s Hard to Win Without Using Math

As you learned in the last section, it’s hard to win without using some math. I know that you might not enjoy math, but if you want to be a good holdem player you need to use it.

The good news is that you don’t have to be a PHD level mathematician. In fact, once you start using the math you need, you’re going to see that there’s nothing so difficult that you can’t learn how to use it with a little practice.

Start With Learning About Basic Odds

This is basically how likely things are to happen using a deck of cards. Once you learn basic odds, advance to pot odds like I explained in the least section.

Then start learning more about poker expectation and expected value. Once you master these things you’re well on your way to making money at the Texas holdem tables.

7 – It Costs Too Much Money to Learn

The sad fact is that you have to invest a great deal of money to learn how to win at Texas holdem. You need to invest in good books to learn a lot of what you need to know, but the biggest cost is playing, losing, and learning from your mistakes.

You can play free poker online, but the play is so bad at the free tables that you don’t learn much. You have to play for real money to start learning some things. You can start at low limit tables and move up as you improve your skills.

Keep a close eye on your bankroll and don’t get in a hurry to move to the next level. Make sure you’re making money at 1 level before trying the next 1.

Conclusion

If you put in the work and learn from your mistakes, Texas holdem is 1 of the best gambling games you can play. It can make you money instead of costing you money like most gambling activities.

But most players never reach the point where they’re winning on a consistent basis. And if you’re not careful you might end up in this group.

If you really want to get better, stop playing so many hands, learn how to use pot odds, and embrace the math you need to use. It might take a long time, but you can overcome the 7 sad truths about Texas holdem in this article.

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I just wrote a blog post about increasing your chances of winning at Blackjack, and I thought, you know what, this would make a great series of posts!

So, now I’m writing a post about how to increase your chances of winning at Texas holdem.

The good news is that the casino doesn’t care if you win at Texas holdem or lose at Texas holdem.

The house isn’t banking the game, so you don’t have to deal with beating the casino.

The bad news is that you still need to beat your competitors at the table. Here are some tips on how to do that:

Tighten Up

If you’re not winning often enough at Texas holdem to break even or show a small profit, you probably need to tighten up. Some of the more experienced poker players reading this might think they’re playing tight enough already, but if that’s true, why aren’t you winning enough to break even?

If you’re a beginner, you might not even know what I mean when I suggest you “tighten up.”

Put simply, playing tight means playing fewer hands and folding more often.

This way you’ll be putting your money in the pot when you have a better probability of winning the pot.

It’s important that you have a gas pedal and brakes, too.

You might have a super hand preflop, but if the flop doesn’t fit your hole cards at all, you should be ready to get away from the hand before it’s too late to get out.

This doesn’t mean you have to lay down and die every time you don’t get a perfect flop. You can still make continuation bets against weak opponents.

It means that you shouldn’t take weak hands too far.

Winning in the long run in poker rooms and Texas Holdem poker sites means losing less money on pots you probably weren’t going to win.

Saving a few dollars is just as important as winning a few dollars.

Bet and Raise More Often

The next step is get more aggressive – this means betting and raising more often.

If you’re playing tight, you usually have strong hands.

When you bet and raise with those strong hands, you do 2 things to help you increase your chances of winning:

You get more money in the pot when you have a better chance of winning a showdown.
You pick up money from the pot when all your opponents fold.

This means that if you have strong cards, and you’re the first one in the pot, you should bet instead of check.

I’ve read a book recently by Ed Miller where he suggests that tight aggressive players always fold when raised to. I don’t think most tight aggressive players play that simply at all.

But most players who aren’t winning enough are playing too many hands, and they’re playing the hands they are playing too passively.

You should bet more often than you check.
You should raise more often than you call.

If you don’t feel good enough about your hand to raise with it, you really don’t need to be calling with it, either.

Texas Holdem Odds Practice

I’ve seen at least one person describe a tight aggressive strategy as being a “raise or fold” strategy.

That’s not quite right, but it’s closer to optimal than you’re probably playing right now.

Semi-Bluff More Often

I laughed at a friend of mine who’s loose aggressive not long ago because he told me, “Bluffing is an essential part of the game.”

That might be true, but most beginners bluff too often and also bluff too many opponents.

Bluffs work best when you’re bluffing against 1 or 2 opponents.

A better option – for most players – is to learn how to semi-bluff.

A semi-bluff is a bet or a raise you make with a hand that probably isn’t ahead, but it has the possibility of winning on a later round.

The classic example is on the flop in a Texas holdem game when you have 4 cards to a flush and you’re facing a single opponent who you think has a medium pair.

He’s ahead of you, but you get 2 more cards.

If you bet into this pot, he might fold. You’ll win the pot right there and then.

But some of the time, he’ll call.

When he does, you have about a 1 in 3 probability of winning at the showdown by hitting your flush.

Most beginners know what bluffing is, but they don’t know what a semi-bluff is and don’t semi-bluff often at all.

It should be a go-to move for a Texas holdem player.

Play within Your Bankroll

You should have enough money set aside to play Texas holdem with that you’re not stressed out about every bet on every hand. Scared money always loses.

This depends, in part, on your goals as a player.

If you’re just playing recreationally, and you don’t care about the money, it’s okay to play with a smaller bankroll than you would play with if you were trying to play professionally.

The idea behind bankroll management in poker is that you want to avoid going broke because you had a run of bad luck.

This means not playing in games where the bankroll is more than 5% (or 2%) of your total bankroll. In some cases – if you’re conservative – it might mean having 150 times your buy-in as a bankroll.

Most experts agree that the bankroll requirements for a sit-n-go tournament player are different from the bankroll requirements for a multi-table tournament player.

If you want to make optimal poker decisions, you need to have a big enough bankroll that you’re willing to bet and raise when you have a small edge.

Pay Attention

I’ve known a lot of ABC poker players who don’t pay attention to hands they’re not playing in. Once they’ve folded, they just watch television or daydream.

If you’re going to increase your chances of winning at poker, you need to pay attention to how your opponents play the game.

Every hand they provide you with information about their playing tendencies, whether you’re paying attention or not.

If you have an opponent who raises every time he sees a flop, you won’t know his tendency unless you’ve been paying attention to how he plays.

In fact, most opponents aren’t this predictable. You should pay attention to your opponents’ ranges.

Do they bet into the pot 50% of the time? 70% of the time?

What do they do most of the time on the turn and the river?

Understanding these tendencies is critical to winning against such opponents.

Read a Book (Or Several)

Some poker players are naturals and learn everything they need to know at the table.

But if you’re a beginner, why wouldn’t you want to tap into the ideas of some of the experts in the field?

Reading Harrington on Holdem isn’t going to do anything but improve your game, no matter how much experience you have at the table.

At least read David Sklansky’s Theory of Poker.

You can pay for tutoring and coaching. You can even buy a MasterClass membership and learn from Daniel Negreanu and Phil Ivey.

But reading poker books is cheaper and a good place to start.

I lost at poker big-time and consistently until I started reading books about the game. The first book about poker I ever read was Andy Bellin’s Poker Nation, which isn’t the best strategy guide ever.

But for a beginner, it was a lifesaver.

Take Care of Your Health

This probably sounds like some frou-frou hippy-dippy nonsense, but if you take better care of your health, you’ll make better decisions at the poker table.

This means drinking enough water, eating a variety of nutritious food, getting enough rest, and exercising regularly.

A Texas holdem player isn’t an athlete in the traditional sense, but a strong mind resides in a strong body – so do what you need to do to keep your body healthy and strong.

Probably the worst thing you can do for your health AND your poker game is to pollute your body with alcohol and drugs.

Some very talented poker players have destroyed their poker careers and their lives by abusing drugs and alcohol. Read about Stu Ungar if you want a specific example.

Conclusion

You increase your chances of winning at Texas holdem by becoming a more skilled player.

At lower stakes, this probably just means folding more often and betting or raising more often than you’re doing now.

When you start playing for higher stakes, it will take more effort to be a winner.

But it’s worth the hard work.