Texas Hold 'Em: Position, Betting, and Flop Texture for Beginners

For those new to poker, I’m sure in one form or another you have heard the word “position” and maybe even a brief description of what it is. Let me break it down for you and it’s importance to the game. Position refers to where you sit in relation to the dealer. As you know, after each hand is finished the dealer button moves one seat to the left putting you in earlier position which makes the decisions harder and gets you closer to having to pay the blinds.

Now being in early position is bad for a couple reasons. 1) If you call and see a flop, you will more than likely be first to act in each round, forcing you to make moves based on very little information. 2) You have to have stronger hands to play from early position because the other opponents still have to act and you don’t know what they have or what they will do. I have compiled a short list on my “No Limit Texas Hold Em for Beginners” hub of hands to play from what position. This will help you stay out of trouble. Use this link here to read it: http://hubpages.com/hub/No-Limit-Texas-Hold-Em-For-Beginners

You also want to remember that if you’re in late position, say seat #8, and you’re holding Ac9c ( a hand that is ok to play in that position) and someone raises in front of you, you may want to consider letting the hand go. A raise from early position is normally someone trying to say “I got something” and you have to assume that they’re using the same starting hand requirements that I’ve outlined in my hub for beginners. I would definitely suggest picking up Dan Harrington’s, “ Harrington on Hold ‘Em” series. Definitely pick up number 1 to start if you’re new…it’s a great book for beginners. Amazon.com has it for super cheap. Of the three, it’s the dark blue book. That’s basically it for position. In later hubs I will try and emphasize strategies to use when you’re either in or out of position with more hand examples.

Now this is where the game can be fun and strategic. "No Limit Texas Hold 'Em" or the "Cadillac of Poker" is the game where at any point, a player can declare "all in" and push his chips to the center.

But lets start at the beginning. For most people, choosing how much to bet is really the difficult part. As you read more literature, you will find that the answers vary. First, you have to determine what you want your bet to accomplish....do you want to chase people out of the hand? Or maybe you have a "monster" and want to get money in the pot to potentially win? Maybe you want to "isolate" a player. Not too worry, I will elaborate on these later, but I wanted to get you into the mindset needed so you can determine what you're trying to accomplish with your bet. And as I've mentioned above, position will play a big part of when and how much you're trying to bet.

Here are a couple rules of thumb to follow by when making a bet:

• If you are first to enter a pot, raise. I would suggest 2.5-4.5x the BB. As you gain experience, you may want to "limp" into the pot. But as a beginner, I suggest doing this because following my starting hand requirements will lead others to believe you're a tight player. So a raise from you will suggest strength.
• If someone calls or "limps" in front of you and you have a hand and want to raise: I would suggest 3x BB. This is because 3x BB is pretty standard and should chase most people with garbage out of the hand. Not only that, but make sure not to overbet or raise to high because you may lose your chips and could've accomplished the same thing with a smaller bet.
• If you have a strong hand and have been raised in front of: I would raise the other players raise 3-4xBB. If the blinds are 10-20 and it was raised to 60 in front of you, I would raise it to 180-240.
• Always remember: Either keep your bets the same or vary them significantly. I say this because if you raise 3x BB when you have pocket Aces and you raise 2.25xBB with pocket 9's, eventually someone will pick up on that. This also applies to how much you bet from where you're sitting. Your opponets are watching!!!

This subject can get complicated so I'm going to just cover a couple thoughts to get you thinking. Now here is an example hand. Read it, give it some thought, then decide what you would do. Also, if you feel you have a better suggestion or would've played the hand different please feel free to post a comment down below. Now let's say you're in late position, with pocket Q's ( Qc Qs) and it's been folded to you. Blinds are 100-200 and you decided you want a little action so you raise it 3x BB ( like mentioned above ) to 600 chips to go. Everyone folds to the BB, who after a little thought decides to call. Now the flop comes Kc 2d Jc.....opponet decides to bet 1000 chips, what do you do????

• You can assume he has a K and you fold
• Maybe he's on a Flush Draw
• 2 pair is a possibility
• You can call and see the turn or
• You can raise

This is where this gets tricky...hopefully without having to make this section long with text you have an idea of flop texture. You are simply trying to look at the flop and see how it may have helped you and most importantly how it helped your opponent. This is where I'm going to leave off on flop texture. I will go in more depth later as it gets complicated when you start adding other pieces of info throughout the game. Be sure to let me know in the comments section what you would do in this hand and why, or any other ideas you may have. If you'd like to get ahead of me you can check out another book from amazon. This is "Harrington on Hold 'Em" volume 3 ( where is 2 right??? we'll check that out later ) Volume 3 utilizes his thoughts into a workbook for you to complete. I suggest using this even without reading his first 2 books just to get you thinking and compare to his thoughts. Let me know what you think!