Teaching someone how to play poker, the correct play to make in every situation, is nearly impossible because there are so many unique situations and player types. You can definitely provide some general guidelines, but because the game is so dynamic, and so dependent on the psychology of your opponents there is no recipe that you must follow to the letter. And often the general advice someone might give for low-stakes games will be the exact opposite of what is 'correct' at many high-stakes games. What is 'correct' depends. However, there is a particular way to think about poker in general that most people are unaware of, so I figured I'd share some of my insights on the topic. As the old adage goes about teaching a man to fish, rather than giving him a fish... I don't recall the specifics, but you get the idea.
The Fundamental Theorem of PokerFamous poker author David Sklansky defines the fundamental theorem of poker as the following:
Every time you play a hand differently from the way you would have played it if you could see all your opponents' cards, they gain; and every time you play your hand the same way you would have played it if you could see all their cards, they lose. Conversely, every time opponents play their hands differently from the way they would have if they could see all your cards, you gain; and every time they play their hands the same way they would have played if they could see all your cards, you lose.
Just keep this in mind, as it's a good baseline for understanding all the following concepts.
Pot Odds and EquityEquityThe concept of pot odds and hand equity lies at the heart of understanding the fundamental structure of poker. Your 'equity' in a hand is the percentage of the pot that you stand to win. In a pot where you are all-in before the flop with AA against JJ, you stand to win the pot 80% of the time, so your equity in the hand is 80% of whatever is in the pot; your opponent's equity is 20% of the pot. In this case we are examining a hand where both hands are already face up. In practice, of course, only your own hand is known to you; the exact hand of your opponent is a mystery. So in practice your equity will be calculated (or actually 'estimated') as your specific hand against the RANGE of hands that you assign to your opponent in any given situation (which we will get to shortly).
Fold EquityFold equity is equity you can add to your hand equity when you are the person who is betting or raising. It doesn't have to be a associated with 'bluffing', but often is. For example, you might call a bet with a flush draw, when there is also a straight draw possible, intending to bet whether you make your flush OR a scary straight card comes and you can represent the straight. In which case you can add some likely 'fold equity' to the straight equity you have in the pot thanks to your flush draw. So while you might only have a 25% chance to win, you might also have a 15% chance to bluff (when a certain card hits that doesn't make your hand), giving you total equity of around 40%.
Hand Ranges (as opposed to specific hands)
Because we never can know an opponent's exact holding while we are playing, we must make decisions based on the
types of hands they are likely to hold in a certain situation. If a tight player raises from first position we might know from our experience against this player that he only raises approximately the top 3% of his hands from 1st position (if we are playing live we might just estimate this approximately, online we might know for certain based on a statistical analysis of a large sample of hands against this opponent), which might equate to a range of hands like: 99+, AK+. Meaning the only hands he could possibly have, based on our experience against him, are 99, TT, JJ, QQ, KK, AA or AK.*
Now we must act accordingly given this information. Against a range of hands this strong you will mostly only want to play strong hands yourself, though, because we know this player's range so specifically, if there is a lot of money left behind to play in the stacks, we can play some speculative holdings to attempt to win a lot if we hit the flop big, or to bluff some flops that aren't great for his range. The 'correct' play depends on your hand, the equity it has against that range (including 'fold equity'), and your position relative to the guy in first position. Though the correct play will mostly be 'fold' against this player.
How can we determine what our equity is against this (or any) range of hands? You can work though a lot of complex combinatorics mathematics or you can use an equity calculator (available for free to download) such as PokerStove, which determines equities of specific hands against a range of hands.
Once we know our equity against his range how do we know whether we should continue with the hand? Any time your hand has 50% equity, or more, against a single player it should be intuitively obvious that you should continue with the hand. If you stand to win 50.1% of the pot, why would you not want to? Similarly if you have a very low equity, it should be obvious that you don't want to continue with the hand. However there are many situations that come up where you have some equity that is less than 50% (usually between 20-45%) where you still want to continue with the hand, despite not having the 'advantage'. This is where Pot odds, and implied odds come into play.
Pot OddsPot odds refer to the price that you are being laid to call a bet. If you are on the turn and someone bets $25 into a $75 pot, then the pot is laying you 4-1 ($25+$75 / $25). Odds of 4-1 mean that you need to win the pot once out of 5 times (or 20% of the time) in order to break even. If you estimate that you have a 20% chance to win the hand based on the number of cards that improve your hand on the river (combined with the chance that you already have the best hand), then you should definitely call. Despite the fact that as often as 80% of the time you will lose the money that you are putting into the pot at this moment, it is still correct to call based on the 'price' you are being laid, and the amount you will win when you do improve. Compare your estimated equity in the hand against the price being laid by the pot, and that yields your answer as to what you should do.
For a concrete example say you have 5d 4d on a board of Qd 8d 7c 3s, with one card to come. Your opponent bets $25 into a $50 pot, should you call? Based on your opponents style of play and betting you have determined he very likely has some 'made' hand (top pair, over pair, 2 pair, set). The pot is laying you 3-1, which means you need to improve immediately 25% of the time to show an immediate profit on the call. There are 12 cards that improve your hand (9 diamonds and 3 non-diamond 6s), and 34 (52-12-6) that do not. So you will actually improve your hand to a winner 26% of the time (12 / (34+12)), meaning a call is (narrowly) profitable. Had your opponent bet $50 instead of $25 you would have been getting a price of 2-1 meaning you would need a 33% chance to improve in order to continue, and since we only have a 26% chance, we would now have to fold instead of call. UNLESS we know we can win more money those times that we do improve in order to make up the difference. This is where 'implied odds' come in.
Implied OddsIn the same scenario as above say the guy bets $50 into a $50 pot laying us a price of 2-1 ($50+$50 / $50). As in the previous example, if there was no money left to be bet we would need a 33% chance to win in order to making calling a break even proposition. But let's say that there's $150 left in our stacks after the $50 bet and we believe our opponents hand is sufficiently strong that he won't fold it on any river. Now, with implied odds, we are no longer getting a mere 2-1 odds, but actually 5-1 ($50+$50+$150 / $50), meaning we only need a 17% chance to improve to have a break even call, and we know we have a 26% chance to improve so now our call is an easy one.
Real-life scenarios are rarely this cut-and-dry. For example, sometimes our opponent won't pay off a river bet, so we might only be able to assume that we will on average get an extra $80 on the river, rather than the entire $150. Which we have to factor in accordingly. Yielding a calculation of ($50+$50+$80 / $50) or 3.6-1. In which case we would need at least a 22% chance to win, and we have 26% so it would still be a call, even though we only get the extra $150 about half the time rather than every time.
Pot odds aren't only useful to consider when you have a draw. On the river there are no more cards left to come. Either you have the best hand now or you don't. Now pot odds are used to estimate just how often you have the best hand. Say you have a mediocre hand that on the river can only beat a bluff if your opponent bets. If your opponent bets $100 into a $200 pot then your opponent needs to be bluffing at least 25% of the time in order to make a call break even. If he actually would only bluff 10% of the time, for example, then you have a clear fold. If there are a lot of missed draws, and you think a lot of his range consists of missed draws (more than 25% of his range), based on the action, now you can profitably call.
Bet SizingWhen discussing pot odds and equity I have been talking about how these issues apply when someone else has bet, and we are reacting to it. Bet sizing is an issue that comes up when you are the one making the bet (which, if you are a good aggressive player, should occur more often than you facing a bet). So now instead of considering how to re-act we want to determine how to act. When you choose a bet size you are laying a price to your opponent. You generally don't want to bet so small that you offer your opponents odds that are too good in order to profitably draw against you, but you also don't want to bet so large that you prevent your opponents from making mistakes and calling with worse hands. If you bet too large they might comfortably, correctly fold a mediocre hand, when you would rather they make a mistake i.e. call when they believe they are getting the correct 'price', but you know that they aren't. Also, when bluffing, you want to bet an amount that will give yourself a good 'price' on a bluff. That is, you don't want to risk more than is necessary to get the job done, but you don't want to bet so little that your opponents can easily call because you've laid them such a good 'price'.
In practice there is a range of bet sizes that accomplish this, both for bluffing and value betting. Most often bets in the range of 30-100% of the pot are reasonable (in tournaments, most often 50% pot is a good baseline... if you always bet 50% pot you wouldn't be making much a mistake in most situations). Where in that range you bet depends on your hand, your opponent's range of hands, the board texture (which we will get to later), and the size of the stacks (which we get to in the next section).
Also, you want to size your bluffs similar to how you would your value bets, or else you risk giving away information to your opponents by your bet size. However, if you knew your opponents would not pick up on this pattern, then you would prefer to bet larger with your strong hands, and smaller with your bluffs (but not so small that they are easily callable). The reason for this is because you want to build, and win big pots when you have big hands, and you want to minimize the size of your losses when you do not. Again, in practice this will often mean betting somewhere between 50% and 75% of the pot most of the time.
Stack SizesRelated to the concept of implied odds is the very important, but often overlooked issue of stack sizes. In no-limit or pot-limit games stack sizes are crucial. The 'correct' play with a certain hand against a player with a 5 big-blind stack, might be the opposite of what is correct with a 20 BB stack, which in turn might differ from the correct play with a 150 BB stack.
Here is one of the most common applications of stack sizes. With very small pairs 22-66, say, it is hard to proceed with them after the flop if you do not have the lead, or if you do not flop a set. Often the best way to play them is to attempt to 'set mine', that is see if you flop a set, and if you do attempt to win a big pot; and if you don't, fold. Say someone has a stack of $1500 and they raise to $250. They have raised 1/6th of their stack. The odds against flopping a set are 8-1 against. So if you are playing your small pair ONLY to flop a set, then you will be insufficiently paid off for your investment the times that you hit when you had to invest 1/6th of your stack in order to get it. That is, even if you are guaranteed to win the rest of your opponents stack those times that you flop a set you will only earn 5 times your initial investment, and you need to win an average of 8 times it in order to breakeven.
When you flop a set: invested $250 to win $1250 more, or 7-1. When you don't flop a set: You lose $250. You do this 8 times for every 1 time you do flop a set.
Thus, over a representative sample:
8 x $250 = $2000 (lost)
1 x $1500 = $1500 (won)
$2000-$1500 = $500 (net loss)
$500 / 9 = $55 (average loss, per trial)
So even in the most optimistic of circumstances (you always winning the rest of your opponents stack the times that you hit), your play still costs you $55 on average. Making it a very large mistake to 'set mine' on these stack sizes.
So when should you set mine? Ideally you would like to know that your opponent has a very strong hand (one that he will lose most of his stack with the times that you hit). As a rule of thumb if you have 20x the initial raise size in your stacks then you can comfortably, profitably set-mine, for the most part. The more precisely you can read your opponent for a strong hand then you might only need 12x or 15x the initial raise in order to set mine.
PositionThere isn't too much technical to say about position. Mostly you want to remember that you want to play pots in position as often as you can, and especially that you want to
very rarely play pots out of position. That is to say: play tight when out of position. Conversely, play a lot more hands when you have favorable position. When are you in position? When you are the last to act after the flop. If you are on the button, then you have position on everyone at the table. If you are in the small blind, then you are out of position to everyone at the table. So the button is where you most like to be, one to the right of the button is the second best position at the table, etc. It's important to remember that
relative position is all that really matters. So even though the cut-off (one to the right of the button) is the 2nd best position at the table, if the player on the button calls you when you are in the cut-off, then you will be out of position for the hand and at a severe inherent disadvantage.
The Lead (and the Continuation Bet)
Everyone who knows anything about competitive poker will know about, and preach, the extreme importance of position. One element of poker that is almost as important, but which doesn't receive as much attention is 'The Lead'. The one with 'the lead' in a hand is the player with the initiative. So if I raise before the flop, and someone calls me, then I have 'the lead', which is to say the betting initiative. This is very important, because with the lead you can often follow up your preflop show of strength with a postflop bet on most flop textures (no matter what you have), and this bet will be extremely profitable as most players who just call preflop often don't have THAT strong of a starting hand, and in Hold Em if your starting hand isn't that strong, then more often than not it still won't be strong on most flops (it's mathematically difficult in Hold em to flop so much as one pair, much less top pair, much less anything stronger). Also, with the lead, you can continue to represent strong hands on the turn and river when scary cards show up (often an A or K, for example).
So if you raise in middle position and a player calls you on the button, you on one hand are at a disadvantage because you are OOP (out of position), but on the other hand you have the lead which somewhat reduces your disadvantage. Especially if you're up against a straightforward player who doesn't really know how to use his position to his advantage.
The biggest advantage of having the lead is manifested in the Continuation bet. A Continuation Bet (or c-bet) is a flop bet made after you were the preflop aggressor (having either raised, or re-raised preflop). The most common action in a heads up hand of goes: A) preflop one player raises, another player calls. B) the player who raised preflop bets after the flop, the player who called preflop now folds. Note that it doesn't matter what either player has, this is what happens the vast majority of the time, so the player with 'the lead' has an extremely profitable play by simply following up his preflop raise with a flop bet. In heads-up pots, especially against inexperienced (but not extremely loose/crazy) players, the c-bet should be utilized 90% of the time or more.
Hand ReadingThis is perhaps the most crucial skill in poker success. Just about anyone can learn the concepts that I've outlined up to this point, but only putting in hours playing can make you a good hand-reader. Hand-reading is the skill of narrowing opponents ranges of hands in various situations, the more precisely you can determine your opponents ranges the more correct decisions you will be able to make (i.e. correctly fold, correctly call, correctly raise, correctly bluff).
Reading hands is highly dependent on your ability to read player types. Often you can make general reads on players very quickly. For example, if someone is first into the pot and they 'limp' (call rather than raise), it's a very fair assumption that they A) aren't very good or experienced and B) that they are most likely a loose-passive player. The more you play with particular players, the more you will be able to refine your reads. Though the most important reads you will need to make are A) their player type (are they tight-aggressive, loose-passive, loose-aggressive etc.) and B) whether or not they are a good, winning player. You definitely will want to develop mote specific reads on their tendencies with various types of hands in different situations, but often the general read will be the most important one. And if you don't have a read, especially at the lower stakes, it's best to assume that whoever you are playing against is a fairly inexperienced recreational player, who is either weak-tight, or loose-passive.
Board TexturesAnother important element of hand reading is understanding 'board textures'. A flop of Ad Qd Jd is a much different texture than Kd 7c 2s (the former having various draws possible, and many different made hands possible, the latter being a very 'dry' flop i.e. there are only a very small number of strong hands possible, and no draws). You need to be aware of what types of boards likely connect with the ranges of your opponent, and which ones likely missed them. As well as being aware of what your opponents will think are likely board textures that would give you a strong hand (whether you hold one or not).
An example of understanding board texture would be: say you raise with 44 from middle position and a tight player calls you. You know that this player would re-raise with hands like QQ+, AQ+ preflop and usually fold hands like AJ, KQ and KJ. So when he just calls you, you know that most of his hands are medium pairs; hands that beat you. Conversely you know that your opponent likely figures that you are often raising with two high cards. So when the flop comes out AQ2, this flop is very likely to have hit your range of hands (in your opponents eyes), and very unlikely to have helped your opponent, thus you have an easy continuation bet as a bluff. However, in this same situation if the board is 762, or 522, these boards are very good for medium pairs, so you might not want to turn your hand into a bluff here because you will get called a lot more often, and you'll usually be beat. Keep in mind, this only holds true against a specific type of tight opponent. Against loose opponents who call with all kinds of hands, your 44 is a lot more likely to be the best hand on a board like 522, and you should usually c-bet.
BluffingAs you can see bluffing is an element of hand reading. Many people think that poker is mostly about bluffing, and it is certainly an element of it, but not the central one. The reasons we bluff are:
* We are fairly certain that our opponent's range of hands is weak, and our hand can't win unless we bet. But we figure the amount of time our opponent will fold given his weak range will make a bet profitable.
* In order to balance our own range. That is; if every time we bet we have a strong hand, our opponents will correctly just fold all hands of their own that aren't strong after a while, noting that we never bet without a hand. Therefore we must bluff sometimes so that we can get 'action' when we do have a hand (which will be the majority of the time).
The looser your opponents are, the less that they fold, obviously the less often you should attempt to bluff them. And you won't need to. Against they who don't fold, you need only to wait for strong hands and bet them for value in order to win. Against weak tight opponents who fold to much, you should obviously bluff more often (though not usually when they are the one showing strength, of course). In very low stakes games, against mostly bad opponents, this can often translate to not bluffing at all! Or at least bluffing quite seldomly.
Psychology / Tilt / EmotionsOften this is what separates decent players from good or great players. When many people lose money they have a visceral, emotional reaction. They want the money back. In poker if you're playing in order to attempt to win a specified amount back as quickly as possible, you'll often make many errors, and in so doing lose even more money. This is what's known in poker as 'tilt'. Everyone 'tilts' at least somewhat at sometimes. What separates us is those who gain the experience to significantly limit the amount that individual hands affect them (because they've played so many). Also being able to recognize when you are not playing your best, perhaps because you have lost some and might be approaching tilt, and deciding to quit because you know you're not thinking clearly.
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* Note: as a hand progresses through to the river you will often be able to 'narrow' your opponents range to smaller and smaller ranges and often get a very accurate sense of the types of hands he could possibly have by the end of the hand. Where preflop you generally have relatively little information, and are faced with a very wide range of hands your opponent could hold.
** Most of the examples, and information contained herein, apply No limit Hold Em specifically and big-bet poker generally. Not limit variations of poker.
