Elaine

Welcome to the third in my Texas Holdem Strategy Series, focusing on no limit Texas Holdem poker tournament play and associated strategies. In this article, well build upon the poker tournament strategy fundamentals from last time, with some important poker betting strategy basics.

Winning at Texas Holdem poker doesn't have to be a gamble, since it's actually a game of skill. Of course, there will always be an element of chance, but there's a lot more strategy and skill to poker than meets the untrained eye. When you learn to play the odds properly, it can make a huge difference in your winnings.

No limit Texas Holdem is the game of choice these days - and for good reason. The fact that anyone can decide to push a large raise or all of their chips into the pot by going "all-in" at any moment, adds an exciting dimension to the game. Unlike limit Texas Holdem, where each round of betting takes place in prescribed, fixed increments, no limit Texas Holdem is as varied as the players at the table, since everyone chooses their own betting style and approach.

When playing no limit Texas Holdem, you're faced with some important decisions. Arguably, the most important decision youll make is how much to bet in a given set of circumstances; e.g., hand strength, your position at the table, total number of players, their styles, etc. There are many different betting strategies, but one of the first things to learn and pay close attention to are "pot odds" and whether you have a positive expectation to win.

You have a positive expectation whenever the odds favor you winning more than youre wagering at anything greater than 1 to 1 odds. For example, when flipping a coin, there is a 50/50 chance of it coming up either heads or tails. If you flip a coin enough times, both heads and tails will come up an equal number of times.

Casino games, such as craps, blackjack, slot machines, etc. all give the player a negative expectation and the casino a positive expectation. If you play these types of gambling games long enough, you will ultimately lose, since the games odd structure is never in your favor negative expectation. People who experience hot streaks also have losing streaks (they just usually quickly forget about the losing and dont discuss it). When youre making a wager, youd always prefer to have a positive expectation. This is generally true in poker, but not necessarily always in no-limit poker. Ill explain why.

Pot Odds are the odds the pot is giving you for making a bet. Let's say there is $50 in the pot and it'll take $10 more to call - you're getting 5-to-1 pot odds to call, since if you win youll be paid $50 in exchange for risking only $10. For purposes of this decision, any amounts you previously placed into this pot are irrelevant, since theyre already expended and gone (if you fold).

It's essential to understand pot odds as it relates to your hand odds, as one key factor in making your betting decisions. If the odds of you holding or drawing to the winning hand are better than the odds the pot is giving you, you should call or even sometimes raise; otherwise, you should typically fold (unless you're going to bluff, a different story).

Continuing this example, let's say youre holding a pair of fives, and the board flops 9, K, 2 rainbow (no flush draw, different suits). With 9 players at the table, it's certainly possible and likely that someone else holds a King or a Nine, or both, making your 5's look pretty flimsy at this point. Your best shot to win is to draw another 5. There are two more 5's remaining out of the 47 cards that you can't see (in the deck or in another player's hand).

So, the odds of pulling that next 5 on the turn or river are: 2 in 47 (2/47 = about 4%) on the Turn, plus another 2 in 46 on the River (an additional 4%), for a total of roughly 8.6%, which equates to a 1-in-11.6 chance of pulling that third 5 to make a set. Since the pot is only giving 5-to-1 odds, it's generally time to fold. Otherwise, you'd just be "gambling" with a highly negative expectation of losing that additional $10. In no limit Texas Holdem, players will often raise the pot sufficiently to actually lower your pot odds so far that you can't possibly justify staying in the hand at least not statistically.

Clearly you can't sit there in a real poker room with a calculator and run through all of these pot odds calculations while at the table! So, how does one learn poker odds well enough to apply them in real-time? Well, it starts by seeing the poker odds repeatedly, in a context that's suitable for you to learn and eventually retain them. A poker odds calculator is a piece of add-on software that runs on your PC, monitoring your actual online play. A poker odds calculator computes the prospective hands you and your opponents are capable of drawing at any point in time. It then displays all possible hands you and the opponents could draw, teaching you what the odds of making that kind of hand would be.

This makes it easy to see what's going on, and since a poker odds calculator displays the poker odds right there in front of you while you play, youll begin to learn them, making it semi-automatic, so you don't even think about poker odds any more - you just know them. So, the first step is learning and internalizing these hand odds. Then, you can quickly calculate pot odds anytime youd like.

Calculating pot odds requires you to pay close attention to the game, a key trait of good poker tournament players. Unlike playing online, where the total size of the pot is easy to determine (the online Texas Holdem poker program typically displays the pot amount right there on the screen for you), when you play in traditional offline poker tournaments, you must keep track of the pot size and chip count yourself, so you can estimate the pot odds and your best betting options.

Pot odds become especially interesting as the blinds and antes increase as the tournament progresses. Lets say there are 10 players at your table, and the poker tournament structure has you at $25 antes with $200/$400 blinds. Thats a total of $850 thats sitting thre in each and every pot before anyone even places their first bet! So, before you even look at your hand, you know that the minimum bet is $400, so youll need a good hand (with roughly 1 in 2 odds or better) in order to simply break even.

At this point, people will be angling to steal the blinds by placing a hefty bet, typically at least two times the big blind, or $800, in order to make the pot odds so unattractive that everyone just folds. Therefore, the first player to act often makes off with the booty, since the pot odds become even less attractive and most everyone hasnt made a good enough hand to call. Of course, this can definitely backfire...

Lets say the first player to bet raises to $800 in an attempt to steal the blinds, making the total pot now $1,650. Lets say that a second player then calls with another $800, boosting this pot to $2,450. To get in on the action, youd only need to call with $800, which means if you win the hand youre getting a slightly better than 3 to 1 on your money. If its the Flop and you are one card short of making a King-high flush, then your hand odds are roughly 1-in-3. This would be even money if you joined in on this basis alone; however, youre holding a King and theres a King on the board from the Flop, so you now have a better than 1 in 3 chance of winning a positive expectation! You place your $800 bet, so now the pot sits at $3,250.

You should generally make this bet, since it will yield a good return and you have the high pair (Kings), plus a flush draw, thereby improving your odds even further. Lets say there was an Ace also showing, making your Kings second best pair. In this case, it time to fold because you have a less than a 1 in 3 chance of winning this hand, and if you continued throwing money at this pot, youll end up pot-committed and beaten by a pair of Aces (theres usually at least one player in 10 hanging in there with an Ace hole card).

So, lets say the last player to act goes All-in - after weve put our $800 in this pot. Now what? The first reaction should be what kind of hand *could* this player actually hold? If the player is a relatively tight or solid player, chances are theyve made a set or an Ace high flush. Its always possible theyre bluffing, but very unlikely if theyre a good player, since there are already far too many people in this pot and its likely theyd get called with a real hand when bluffing.

So, what's happened to our pot odds? Lets say they went all-in with $5,000, pushing this pot up to $8,250. If you called with $5,000, youre now only getting a 8.25 to 5 return, or roughly 1.65 to 1 especially unattractive under the circumstances with highly negative expectation and so many players in this hand, further reducing your chances of winning. Therefore, everyone will likely just fold; unless they have a very strong hand plus a great draw (some outs).

Theres clearly a lot more to poker betting strategy, including position and acting first vs. last. Generally speaking, though, if youre going to take a shot at that pot, and youre in a position to act first, theres a good chance everyone else will fold; however, youd better think carefully about the pot odds the opponents will be getting after your bet is in there.

If your bet modifies the pot size such that it improves their pot odds (by limping in with just a small bet), youre actually encouraging the opponents to hang in there with you, since they still have a good, positive (and improving) expectation level. If you bet enough, such as two to three times the size of the big blind, youll be reducing their pot odds enough to swing into a negative expectation, so theyll be much more likely to fold. Its really important to think your bet amounts through and understand the pot odds implications of your betting.

When you make such a play at the pot, its ideal to have some kind of hand, along with a good draw. If you find yourself short-stacked, then this may be as good as it gets. Bluffing will be covered more thoroughly in a later article, but at this point itd be great to have at least a small pair, as well as a good straight or flush draw (since youll also have the potential to make a set of trips, too). In this situation, you have so many good outs that your small pair begins to look a lot stronger, and your hand odds acceptable enough to go on a semi-bluff at this pot.

So, these are the basics of Texas Holdem poker tournament betting strategy that you should know and practice (the other good players do). Knowing your basic hand odds and being capable of quickly calculating pot odds are essential to making intelligent betting decisions under fire in poker tournaments, and regular ring game and limit play for that matter. A good poker odds calculator will help you learn the hand odds, and along with practicing calculating your pot odds, youll be making better decisions and getting the best of it the next time you play Texas Holdem poker.

In the next article, well explore a popular Texas Holdem poker tournament format the Sit & Go poker tournament. Until then, have fun. And as always - good luck!

Rick

Rick Braddy is an avid writer, Texas Holdem player and professional software developer and marketer for over 25 years. His websites and Texas Holdem poker software specialize in helping people become better Texas Holdem poker players. If you're a poker player, be sure to visit his Texas Holdem website today and learn how you can play better Texas Holdem, too.

We'd been walking all day and it was raining. All the road signs were in Serbian. It was evening - and we were lost, cold, hungry and soaked.

The war was still a few years away, but there was little to be cheerful about. Then out of the gloom an old man stepped into the road and, raising his eyebrows inquisitively, asked "hotel?".

Looking around at the bleak countryside vanishing rapidly into dripping darkness this didn't seem likely, but we nodded miserably and allowed a flicker of hope to seep in. He smiled, rounded up his three goats and vanished behind a bush.

We followed him. Walking for the next hour the old man gave us tomato's to eat, stale bread from his pockets and a lemon to suck. He collected rainwater in a tin cup dripping from the leaves of a tree and gave us each a drink. He talked all the way, in a voice corroded by time. He may have been telling us very bad jokes, but his words were soothing and he oozed trust and friendship.

The three of us squelched after him.

His 'hotel' was a shed with a rusty tin roof and a concrete floor. In it stood his bed, a relic of a life almost complete and barely supporting a mattress held together by its own flea circus. In the corner stood a pile of damp packing cases, and from the top he removed several bunches of grapes and gave them to us. Then he took out an old rug and lay it on the bed, beckoning us to lie down.

He brought his goats in from the cold and curled up beside us on the floor, snuggling into the animals for warmth. He slid an enormous flagon of home made schnapps from beneath the bed and poured us all a tumbler full, before telling us his story in a mixture of sign language, German he was loathe to speak and Serbo - Croat, his mother tongue. After a tumbler full of schnapps we could understand Serbo Croat. One more and we spoke it as well.

We soon learned that 'Cheers' in his language was 'en jubilee!'

Our friend was in his nineties and had lived in the hills since the last war. He showed us bullet wounds now disguised by jagged scars. Described how each had entered and pointed into the darkness, indicating where his family had been slain and buried.

The wind, appropriately, howled and the rain lashed down. We gulped the molten liquid into numb throats and marvelled at how it didn't affect us. We cried and laughed and glibbly suggested the schnapps should be carefully analysed by experts in linguistics.

There would be war in the hills. he said. Within 20 years. Hatred and resentment ran deep, but he was ready to fight again if he had too, and showed us his gun, bayonet and an evil looking bloodstained knife which lay by the bed.

We drifted into a stupor. The old man had become agitated when we asked if he wanted his bed back. By questioning his hospitality we had insulted him, and were careful not to do it again.

Morning was awful. Mangled head and nausea.

I wasn't prepared for our host's smiling face and his proffered glass of steaming goats milk. Refusal was impossible, and removing the goat debris from the frothing surface wasn't appropriate either. Gallantly I kicked my friends and told them there was a drink waiting for them and to remember how a refusal at this point could cause grief. I lied to them that mine hadn't tasted too bad.

He found us more stale bread. A watermelon. Two lemons, a bunch of grapes, a container of goats milk and an old wine bottle full of schnapps. The manager of this fine establishment then led us back onto the road, showed us the best place to stick out our thumbs, and stopped a tractor to give us a lift. We watched him fade into the early morning mist.

Generosity. Until you meet someone who gladly gives everything they own without thought, the word has no meaning. I measure my actions against this man but come up woefully short.

Until our role models stop being the wealthy, powerful and loud our future looks bleak. The old adage "Charity begins at home" has been cruelly adapted to suit our needs. It actually reads, "Charity begins by being taught at home."

A very good place to start.

Rob Daniel is a children's author, memory and self-esteem teacher. He lives in beautiful Albany on the south west corner of Western Australia, has a passion for mangos, the Greek Islands and coaches three soccer teams. He sort of still plays himself!

Rob creates 'turn the page' children's e-books with illustrators from around the world. You can check out and if you like, buy his books from http://www.chocmint.com You'll also find an opportunity to join the chocmint adventure yourself, if you have a passion for writing and illustrating for children.

LATEST book published 'A Tail's Tale', illustrated by UK artist Elizabeth Stringer. Part proceeds from these books go towards sponsoring children at the BearCare orphanage in Kitgum, Uganda run by the extraordinary Murray Kidd.