How to play No Limit Texas Holdem (Part 3) Betting and Raising

Hello everyone, last months article gave you a few tips on playing premium hands. Now I will expand on the correct betting strategy for any hand you play.

Betting and Raising

This is what Poker is all about. The size and timing of your bets is what makes you a master. You may have heard about players making a ‘Pot sized bet’ even in a No Limit Holdem game, there is a good reason for this. After the flop a bet of the pot gives a drawing player bad odds to continue, this is one of the key factors in poker. The object is to get your opponents to make a mistake and overvalue their hand. If you made the right move the final outcome of the hand is meaningless, if you make less mistakes than your opponent you will be the winner in the end.

If however both players have a large number of chips, this negates the (pots odds) factor as the potential win (implied odds) is huge compared to the bet. This is why you see players making large bets on the turn if they think their opponent is on a draw and they don’t have deep enough stacks to make calling feasible.

Almost all bets should be between half and all of the pot. This allows you to manipulate the pot as you wish. In a live cash game it is not uncommon to see bets larger that the pot. These bets can be made by inexperienced players or from someone really wanting to protect their hand. If players are calling bets like that then don’t be afraid to make them with your top hands.

Pre flop you should bet between 3 and 5 times the Big Blind or the previous bet amount. If you have callers behind you then look to bet 5 times or more if the game is loose. If you think a player is on any type of draw after the flop then you need to be charging them a high price to continue in the hand, don’t be tempted to checkraise and give them a free chance to check behind for a cheap card.

Next months section will show you how to play the small pocket pairs and a simple low risk high reward strategy for them.