The game is $1/$2 No-Limit Texas Hold'em, the Chevy Cavalier of poker. The minimum buy-in is $40 and the max $200. $1/$2 is the smallest No-Limit game run in most casinos and for that reason the games are very, very soft. Folding Hands Preflop in No-Limit Hold’em Preflop folding can be hard, as most players want to see a flop. However, well-timed folds can be the difference between breaking evenand winning big. What’s the Best Hold’em Hand? If you’re pre-flop the answer is easy: pocket aces. Outside of those.

• Limit Hold Em Rules
• Best No Limit Hold'em Starting Hands
• Free No Limit Hold Em
• No Limit Hold'em Starting Hands
• Texas Hold Em No Limit

Texas Hold’em: a game in which it is easy to learn the basics, but considerably harder to master. For now, let's cover a basic part of the game - starting hands. One aspect of the game of No-Limit Hold’em that causes beginning players much grief is deciding which hands to play and which hands to dump. NL Hold’em is much more difficult than Limit Hold’em because the value of a hand depends on so many factors other than just the cards in your hand. Despite this difficulty, our coaches believe that following some general guidelines and adjusting from these is a.

Terms

• All In – When a player bets all of his/her remaining chips
• Ante – In No Limit Texas Hold’em Tournament play, the amount of chips charged per hand dealt (above and beyond the blinds) whether or not you decide to participate in the hand. Generally, there is no ante charged at the beginning levels. Charging antes helps play go faster.
• Bad Beat – Traditionally, a bad beat was when a stellar hand got beat by a lousy hand; like pocket Aces being beat by 8 3. The term is now used in other cases. For example, when a player with a great hand is beat by an even better hand. Having a Pr Ks beat by a Pr As is a standard beat but, having 4 of a kind beat by a Royal Flush, or a straight beat by a full house are bad beats. Players experience bad beats when an opponent needs a case card to beat them – and gets it. Another type of bad beat is when you are ahead, then behind, then ahead again, then you lose. Here’s an example of that on video, Marc Podell vs Tiffany Michelle in the 2008 Word Series of Poker. Marc’s starting hand of a pair of Tens is better than Tiffany Michelle’s suited connectors.
• Blank – A blank card is a card that does not help a player’s hand improve
• Blinds– Forced bets to ensure that there are chips in the pot (in case everyone folds). The blinds go into the pot before any cards are dealt. There is a Small blind and a Big blind. Examples are: $1/$2, $25/$50, $2000/$4000, $150,000/$300,000. In tournament play, the blinds are increased every 15, 20, 30, 60, 120 minutes, according to the tournament structure. Increasing the blinds ensures that the tournament will end. Without blinds, a player with only one chip could continue to fold hands indefinitely, and the end of the game could be prolonged for an extensive amount of time.
  • Big Blind – The player sitting two to the left of the button (dealer) traveling clockwise around the table. This player is obligated to put the larger amount of the blinds into the pot before the hole cards are dealt. The Big Blind is the last to act (bet, raise, fold or call) pre-flop, and the second to act post-flop. The amount of the Big Blind is the minimum size bet a player can make.
  • Small Blind – The player sitting to the left of the button (dealer) traveling clockwise around the table. This player is obligated to put the smaller amount of the blinds into the pot before the hole cards are dealt. The Small Blind is the next-to-the-last to act (bet, raise or call ) pre-flop, and the first to act post-flop.

  Learn more about the Blinds.

• Board Person – The employee in the Poker Room who is responsible for maintaining the list of card games and limits in the Poker Room and registering players (collecting their money and seeing that they get chips) for the various games inside the Poker Room.
  
• Boat – see Full House
• Burn – These are the cards that the dealer puts to the side before dealing the flop, turn and river. The cards are “wasted” in order to ensure the no one has seen the top card in the deck.
• Button– A token (usually a white plastic disc) that moves clockwise around the table. The button moves one player to the left after each hand. The token indicates the ‘dealer’ for the current hand in order to place the Big Blind and Small Blind (that are to the left of the button). This happens even when there is an actual dealer, who is not participating in the poker game.

  The Button moves from one player to the next so that the blinds are evenly distributed around the table and players have equal opportunity to play from different positions.

  How is the initial button determined?
  When a table first opens, a card is dealt in front of each player. The player who receives the highest ranking card is the button. If the card values are equal…Learn more about The Button.

• Case ‘card’ – last ‘card of this amount’ in the deck; meaning there is only one (king, deuce, seven, ten) left in the deck and that is the one that a player needs to make a hand.
• Community Cards – the cards dealt face up to the middle of the table. Five cards are dealt to the middle in No Limit Hold’em – 3 for the Flop, 1 for the Turn, and 1 for the River.
• Computer Hand – Hole cards of Q 7
• Connectors – Hole cards of adjacent amounts like 8 9, 3 4, 5 6.
• Cowboys– aka Ace Magnets – Pair of Ks ()
• Cut-Off – The player one to the left of the dealer (button)
• Deuce – a 2
• Doyle Brunson Hand – 10 2
• Drawing Dead – When there are no cards that can come on the board that can improve your hand.
• Family Pot – When everyone at the table plays a round of betting. Somtimes used when “most” of the players at the table are in the hand.
• Flag(s) – $5,000 poker chip(s)
• Flatsaka Flat Calls– Player calls without raising or re-raising
• Fish – A bad player, oftentimes a beginner; an easy target for more experienced poker players
• Fold – Choosing to not play a hand or to discontinue playing a hand
• Flop – The first three community cards dealt face up to the middle of the table. Learn more about the Flop.
• Full House – aka Boat – Three of one card value and a pair of another. Example: In this amazing first hand of a $10K tournament, Sammy Farha gets a full house (Aces full of Tens) and Oliver Hudson gets a full house (Tens full of Aces). Sammy’s full house is better because he has three Aces. Sammy has The Nuts and Oliver ends up with a Bad Beat.
• Highway Patrol – 10 4
• Hole Cards – The two cards dealt to you face down. Learn more about the Hole Cards.
• Hooks – Pair of Js
• Ladies – Queens
• Limp In – Entering the pot by putting in the big blind (and not raising.) Limping in does not give other players any idea of what your hole cards might be. Players with strong hands like AA and KK sometimes ‘limp in’ in order to disguise the strength of their hand. See Slow Playing.
• Kicker – One of your hole cards. When players have a card in common (say you have AQ and another player has QJ), if the community cards do not enhance one of the hands or enhances both hands in the same way, the one with the higher kicker (the uncommon card) wins the hand (AQ).
• Kojac – KJ
• Muck Your Hand – Surrender your cards to the dealer face down and without showing them to other players. Tossing your cards in the middle without showing them.
• The Nuts – The very best 5-card hand that can be made combining a player’s hole cards and the community cards.
• Offsuit – aka Unsuited. Cards of different suits. Offsuit is sometimes designated by “o”, so 53o means a five and a three of different suits. Spoken like 5 (pause) 3 (pause) offsuit. Sometimes the “u” for Unsuited is used instead of the “o”.
• On Tilt – upset – maybe angry, disappointed or disgusted. A player who is emotionally affected by recent play. Players who are on tilt need time to recover because oftentimes when they play a hand while on tilt, they make bad choices.
• Pancake(s) – $25,000 poker chip(s)
• Rag – A weak kicker
• Rake – The dollar amount the Poker Room takes from each tournament entrant, or in cash games, from each hand. It is income to cover expenses of holding the tournament/game.
• River – aka Fifth Street – The fifth (and last) community card dealt. Learn more about the River.
• Rockets – aka Pocket Rockets and American Airlines – Pair As for hole cards
• Royal Flush – A K Q J 10 of the same suit. Two Royal Flush Examples at the WSOP.
• Runner Runner – When a player needs both the Turn and the River to be cards that will complete his/her hand.
• Stack – the amount of chips each player has
• Slow Playing – When a player has a big hand and does not bet nor raise in order to disguise the “strength” of his/her hand.
• Snow men – Pair of 8s
• Suited – Cards of the same suit
• TJ Cloutier hand – J 9 clubs
• Treys – a Pr of 3s
• Turn – aka Fourth Street – The fourth community card dealt. Learn more about the Turn.
• Rainbow – Flop of three different suits
• Under the gun – First to act (bet or call) after the hole cards have been dealt. This player is seated to the left of the Big Blind. Learn more about being Under The Gun.
• Unsuited – See Offsuit.
• Walking sticks – Pair of 7s
• Wheel – A 5-High Straight of mixed suits – 5 4 3 2 A. A wheel with cards all in the same suit is a Straight Flush that is also called a “steel wheel“.
• Worst hand in the deck – 7 2

In the poker game of Texas hold 'em, a starting hand consists of two hole cards, which belong solely to the player and remain hidden from the other players. Five community cards are also dealt into play. Betting begins before any of the community cards are exposed, and continues throughout the hand. The player's 'playing hand', which will be compared against that of each competing player, is the best 5-card poker hand available from his two hole cards and the five community cards. Unless otherwise specified, here the term hand applies to the player's two hole cards, or starting hand.

Essentials[edit]

There are 1326 distinct possible combinations of two hole cards from a standard 52-card deck in hold 'em, but since suits have no relative value in this poker variant, many of these hands are identical in value before the flop. For example, A♥J♥ and A♠J♠ are identical in value, because each is a hand consisting of an ace and a jack of the same suit.

Therefore, there are 169 non-equivalent starting hands in hold 'em, which is the sum total of : 13 pocket pairs, 13 × 12 / 2 = 78 suited hands and 78 unsuited hands (13 + 78 + 78 = 169).

These 169 hands are not equally likely. Hold 'em hands are sometimes classified as having one of three 'shapes':

• Pairs, (or 'pocket pairs'), which consist of two cards of the same rank (e.g. 9♠9♣). One hand in 17 will be a pair, each occurring with individual probability 1/221 (P(pair) = 3/51 = 1/17).

Alternative means of making this calculation

First Step

As confirmed above.

There are 1326 possible combination of opening hand.

Limit Hold Em Rules

Second Step

There are 6 different combos of each pair. 9h9c, 9h9s, 9h9d, 9c9s, 9c9d, 9d9s. Therefore, there are 78 possible combinations of pocket pairs (6 multiplied by 13 i.e. 22-AA)

To calculate the odds of being dealt a pair

78 (the number of any particular pair being dealt. As above) divided by 1326 (possible opening hands)

78/1326 = 0.058 or 5.8%

• Suited hands, which contain two cards of the same suit (e.g. A♣6♣). 23.5% of all starting hands are suited.

Probability of first card is 1.0 (any of the 52 cards)Probability of second hand suit matching the first:There are 13 cards per suit, and one is in your hand leaving 12 remaining of the 51 cards remaining in the deck. 12/51=.2353 or 23.5%

• Offsuit hands, which contain two cards of a different suit and rank (e.g. K♠J♥). 70.6% of all hands are offsuit hands

Offsuit pairs = 78Other offsuit hands = 936

It is typical to abbreviate suited hands in hold 'em by affixing an 's' to the hand, as well as to abbreviate non-suited hands with an 'o' (for offsuit). That is,

QQ represents any pair of queens,

KQ represents any king and queen,

AKo represents any ace and king of different suits, and

JTs represents any jack and ten of the same suit.

Limit hand rankings[edit]

Some notable theorists and players have created systems to rank the value of starting hands in limit Texas hold'em. These rankings do not apply to no limit play.

Sklansky hand groups[edit]

David Sklansky and Mason Malmuth^[1] assigned in 1999 each hand to a group, and proposed all hands in the group could normally be played similarly. Stronger starting hands are identified by a lower number. Hands without a number are the weakest starting hands. As a general rule, books on Texas hold'em present hand strengths starting with the assumption of a nine or ten person table. The table below illustrates the concept:

Chen formula[edit]

The 'Chen Formula' is a way to compute the 'power ratings' of starting hands that was originally developed by Bill Chen.^[2]

Highest Card

Based on the highest card, assign points as follows:

Ace = 10 points, K = 8 points, Q = 7 points, J = 6 points.

10 through 2, half of face value (10 = 5 points, 9 = 4.5 points, etc.)

Pairs

For pairs, multiply the points by 2 (AA=20, KK=16, etc.), with a minimum of 5 points for any pair. 55 is given an extra point (i.e., 6).

Suited

Add 2 points for suited cards.

Closeness

Subtract 1 point for 1 gappers (AQ, J9)

2 points for 2 gappers (J8, AJ).

4 points for 3 gappers (J7, 73).

5 points for larger gappers, including A2 A3 A4

Add an extra point if connected or 1-gap and your highest card is lower than Q (since you then can make all higher straights)

Best No Limit Hold'em Starting Hands

Phil Hellmuth's: 'Play Poker Like the Pros'[edit]

Phil Hellmuth's 'Play Poker Like the Pros' book published in 2003.

Free No Limit Hold Em

Statistics based on real online play[edit]

Statistics based on real play with their associated actual value in real bets.^[3]

Nicknames for starting hands[edit]

In poker communities, it is common for hole cards to be given nicknames. While most combinations have a nickname, stronger handed nicknames are generally more recognized, the most notable probably being the 'Big Slick' - Ace and King of the same suit, although an Ace-King of any suit combination is less occasionally referred to as an Anna Kournikova, derived from the initials AK and because it 'looks really good but rarely wins.'^[4][5] Hands can be named according to their shapes (e.g., paired aces look like 'rockets', paired jacks look like 'fish hooks'); a historic event (e.g., A's and 8's - dead man's hand, representing the hand held by Wild Bill Hickok when he was fatally shot in the back by Jack McCall in 1876); many other reasons like animal names, alliteration and rhyming are also used in nicknames.

Notes[edit]

No Limit Hold'em Starting Hands

1. ^David Sklansky and Mason Malmuth (1999). Hold 'em Poker for Advanced Players. Two Plus Two Publications. ISBN1-880685-22-1
2. ^Hold'em Excellence: From Beginner to Winner by Lou Krieger, Chapter 5, pages 39 - 43, Second Edition
3. ^http://www.pokerroom.com/poker/poker-school/ev-stats/total-stats-by-card/^{[dead link]}
4. ^Aspden, Peter (2007-05-19). 'FT Weekend Magazine - Non-fiction: Stakes and chips Las Vegas and the internet have helped poker become the biggest game in town'. Financial Times. Retrieved 2010-01-10.
5. ^Martain, Tim (2007-07-15). 'A little luck helps out'. Sunday Tasmanian. Retrieved 2010-01-10.

Texas Hold Em No Limit