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Texas hold’em is popular because it’s a skill based game that gives you the chance to win lots of money.

1. Texas Hold'em is always a game you should play with the long term in mind, if your poker hand has a 55/45 advantage compared to your opponents, you can lose it 10 times in a row. But if you play the hand 10,000 times on average you will win 55% (5.500) times.This is why good bankroll management is important. A quick test of your poker skills.
2. Playing Texas Holdem online might even be the easiest way to get comfortable with the rules of Texas Hold’em as you can play hands at a much faster pace. You can choose to play for real money, of course, or you can start playing the free Texas Holdem games offered at every site.
3. The worst possible starting hand in Texas Holdem is 72o, which should be folded almost in all situations. The worst made hand is a High Card, which means you only have random cards that do not connect in any way. For example, Q 9 7 5 4, which is known as Queen-high. How To Play Texas Holdem Poker.

And this is exactly why I started playing the game. Visions of Chris Moneymaker and Greg Raymer winning giant World Series of Poker prizes convinced me to take up Texas hold’em.

The only problem is that I didn’t bother learning much about poker before diving headfirst into the matter. I’d seen too many Hollywood movies where the hero stares down an opponent and out bluffs them with 2 7 off suit.

Needless to say, I donated a lot of money to other players until making it a point to learn Texas hold’em strategy. If you’re trying to get your bearings in poker, follow along as I cover 10 of the biggest mistakes that I made.

1. Fold…and Then Fold Some More

It’s often said that folding is the best play in poker. And this is one of the few tips that I learned before starting my poker journey in the mid-2000s.

But it was a while before I fully understood how often one should fold in Texas hold’em.

It’s easy to fold when you have 4 9 offsuit in early position. But it’s much harder to let go of 6 7 suited when you’re in middle position and wanting to play a drawing hand.

The truth of the matter is that you’ll be folding far more often than playing hands because you want to avoid playing hands with a low winning percentage.

Another aspect to consider here is table position. You generally need a strong hand when raising from an early position because you don’t have as much betting information from opponents.

Here’s an example of putting everything together:

• You’re on a 9-player table.
• You hold pocket 6s in middle position.
• One player raises from early position.
• Another player re-raises from early position.
• You fold because early position players are showing major hand strength.

My overall advice is that you should fold lots of hands in the beginning until gaining experience. You’ll likely lose money in the beginning, but you want to minimize losses by frequently folding.

2. Bet Sizing Is Crucial

The biggest Texas hold’em aspect that I was clueless on is bet sizing. This refers to the strategic approach that players take when deciding how much to bet in no-limit Texas hold’em.

Of course, every player at the table is bet sizing to a degree whether they know it or not. But it takes a skilled approach to maximize winnings in favorable situations and limit losses in unfavorable spots.

How you size bets will heavily depend on the situation. Here are some different scenarios that you’ll run into with Texas hold’em:

• You have the nuts and want to extract maximum value out of an opponent(s).
• You have a good preflop hand (e.g. aces, kings, queens) and are betting to isolate an opponent.
• You have a good drawing hand (e.g. K Q suited) and want to appear strong preflop.
• You’re isolated with a weak opponent and want to bluff them out of a pot with a marginal hand.

These examples illustrate how there’s no one-size-fits-all strategy for each scenario. This is why bet sizing involves a delicate balance of profiling your opponents (discussed later) and understanding the situation.

Let’s look at an example:

• You have A A on a flop of A J J, giving you a set of aces.
• Your opponent bets the pot.
• The opponent has been playing tight.
• You’re certain that they have a set of jacks, leaving you in the lead.
• You need to bet in a manner that maximizes your value without forcing a fold.
• I’d use a 2x pot raise here because you should try and get something out of this situation without betting too big.

The one thing that you want to avoid as a beginner is betting without a plan.

This is exactly the problem that I suffered when starting out. I’d do stupid things like go all in with a marginal hand just to steal blinds.

You might steal the blinds a fair number of times with this strategy, but you’re in major trouble if a good hand calls you.

3. Proper Bankroll Management Is Crucial

Like many new poker players, I started out with absolutely no clue on bankroll management. Instead, I just used side income to buy into whatever cash game stakes or tournaments I felt like in the moment.

For example, I might deposit $100 on a poker site and start playing in $0.10/$0.20 cash games ($20 buy-in). Beginners may think this is enough money because you have five cash game buy-ins.

But the problem is that poker contains a fair amount of luck. Even the most skilled players need a large bankroll so that they can survive downswings.

This begs the question of how you figure out how much money you need.

The first matter involves determining how much disposable income you can put towards poker. I’ll use $1,000 as an example for both cash game and tournament players here.

The second step is to determine what stakes you can comfortably play with this amount of money.

A good guideline for cash game players is to only play stakes where you can afford 30 buy-ins or more. With $1,000, you’d need to play $0.15/$0.30 stakes ($30 buy-in) or lower.

A general guideline for tournament players is to have a bankroll worth at least 100 buy-ins. Taking the standard 10% tournament fees into account, you’d want to play in events with less than a $10 + $1 buy-in.

Tournament bankrolls can differ, though, because even good players can go 30 or more tourneys without cashing. You may decide to play stakes where you can afford 200 buy-ins or more.

The overall point is to put effort into bankroll management before you start playing real money poker.

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4. Playing Aggressive Doesn’t Mean Being a Maniac

When I first started taking Texas hold’em strategy seriously, I kept reading about how players need to be aggressive.

I remember seeing references to players like Gus Hansen and Phil Ivey pulling off incredible bluffs thanks to their aggression. I also saw where some top online players raise with drawing hands against tight opponents.

This sparked me to turn up the aggression and start making more bets and raises with marginal hands. Sometimes it worked, but the majority of the time it caused me to bleed out money much faster.

The truth is that I’d become a maniac without even knowing it. And this is only effective until you run into skilled players who can identify your hand range and betting patterns.

Needless to say, I learned that being aggressive doesn’t mean raising like a crazy man and trying to push everybody out of hands. Instead, you should gain more experience before opening up your hand range and being more aggressive.

You need to play at certain stakes for a while so that you can identify patterns and better spot weak players. This allows you to pull off bluffs and steal more pots.

5. Pot Odds Help You Make Decisions on Drawing Hands

I often struggled with deciding when to make calls with drawing hands on the flop and turn. The process would’ve been much easier if I understood pot odds at the time.

Pot odds is a method of calculating how much money you need to contribute to the pot. You can then use this info to help you decide whether it’s worth calling with a drawing hand.

You can either use ratios or percentages to figure out pot odds. I personally like percentages and will use these in my examples.

But keep in mind that you can also use percentage to odds calculators if you’re more comfortable with odds.

The first step with pot odds is deciding how much you must contribute to the pot.

1 – The pot is worth $80.

2 – Your opponent bets $20.

3 – This makes the pot worth $100.

4 – You need to call $20 to stay in the hand.

5 – We divide 20 by 100 to find out the percentage you contribute.

6 – Your pot odds are 20% (4:1 odds).

The next step is to consider your number of outs, or remaining cards that will complete your hand. Here’s how this works:

• You have Q J, and the flop is 10 9 3.
• Four 8s and four kings will help you make a straight.
• This gives you 8 outs to make your hand.

The last step is to figure out your hand equity, or chances of making your hand. And we use a simple formula that involves multiplying outs by 2 and adding 1.

Here’s how this works:

• 8 outs x 2 = 16.
• 16 + 1 = 17% chance of completing your straight.
• Your hand equity (17%) is lower than your pot odds (20%).
• Don’t make this call, because you’re contributing more to the pot than you’ll win in the long term.

Implied odds and reverse implied odds add advanced layers to calling with draw hands. But knowing pot odds is enough to get you by as a new player.

6. You Need to Profile Other Players

Another big mistake that I made as a beginner involved multitasking during online poker sessions. I’d read Yahoo articles, download music, and check my fantasy football team in between hands.

I thought that as long as I understood basic strategy, I’d be fine on the poker tables while doing all this other stuff.

But the truth is that you need to develop a good understanding of your opponents. And this only happens when you profile them during hands.

A few things that you want to look for include how they bet in certain situations, what hands they take to showdowns, and how often they’re seeing flops.

Some poker sites allow you to use software that offers data on your opponents. But if you’re not allowed to use software, then you’ll definitely need to watch your opponents’ tendencies.

The goal is to know enough about your opponent that it helps you make profitable calls and folds.

7. Dedicate a Portion of Your Poker Sessions to Strategy

The way I started learning poker strategy was by reading online articles whenever I was in the mood, and this helped me develop a decent strategy base.

But the problem is that I wasn’t fully unleashing the potential of the information I was learning because I didn’t use what I’d learned until the next poker session, which was sometimes 2-3 days later.

I ultimately found that the best way to learn is by dividing your sessions up into strategy and playing.

The ratio depends upon if you’re a new or experienced player. The latter group will need to dedicate less time to learning the game.

As a beginner, I recommend spending 1-hour studying strategy for every 2 hours that you’re playing. If you’re going to play in a 4-hour session, then you can tack on another 2 hours for strategy.

Assuming you don’t have 6 hours to dedicate to poker, you can instead play 2.5 hours and spend the remaining 1.5 hours learning.

The key is that you’re studying and then applying what you’ve learned immediately to the tables. This helps reinforce strategy and can also make you perform better during sessions.

8. Being Pot Committed Is a Mathematical Concept

I was once one of many poker players who had a misunderstanding of being pot committed. My thinking was that if you bet enough in a hand, you should risk of the rest of your chips no matter what because you’ve invested so much into the pot.

This is completely wrong, though, because pot committed refers to using math to decide if folding is no longer a viable option.

Here’s an easy example of how you can determine whether you’re truly pot committed:

• You bet 50% of your stack by the flop.
• An opponent shoves their stack on the turn and has you covered.
• The pot now contains 50% of your chips and 100% of the opponent’s chips.
• Your pot odds are 25% (3:1 odds) to make the call.
• You only have to win this hand 25% of the time to break even.

You should make this call if you have over a 25% chance to win based on your cards and the opponent’s playing tendencies.

Again, being pot committed isn’t just about how much you’ve invested into a hand. You also have to use math to determine whether you should risk the rest of the chips.

9. Chips Mean More in Tournaments

Chips are obviously important in cash games because they represent your money. But what I didn’t know is that chips are even more valuable in a tournament.

Chips represent your tournament life, and you’re finished once they run out.

This is why it’s critical to understand differences in value between a cash game and tournament chip stack. The main thing to be aware of is that you should avoid thin value situations in tourneys.

A good example is the times where you gain a slight advantage by calling based on pot odds.

You should always call in cash games when you’re getting good pot odds because the goal is to maximize your long-term expected value. But there are times where it’s too risky to call in a tournament when you’re barely getting favorable odds.

One exception is when your chip stack is worth less than 10 big blinds. At this point, you should shove with any decent hand so that you can double your chip stack and gain some leverage.

But do your best to avoid risky situations in the early stages of tournaments, when the blinds aren’t a factor.

10. It Takes a While to Prove That You’re Beating Certain Stakes

Many poker players want to quickly climb the ladder and play higher stakes. I myself was in this boat because I’d sometimes take shots at the next level when I wasn’t even beating the current stakes.

The truth is that it takes a large sample size to determine whether or not you’re beating a specific limit. The general guideline is that you should play at least 100,000 hands before knowing if you’re successful at the current stakes.

Does this mean that you have to play 100,000 hands, though, before you can move up?

No, especially if you’re crushing a limit and are fairly confident that you’re superior to the opponents. But it helps to play as many hands as your patience allows before moving on to higher stakes.

Conclusion

Poker is one of the most difficult forms of gambling. You’re not playing against a static house edge, but rather players who have critical thinking skills and the ability to adjust.

But, as many players have proven over the years, poker can be beaten. The key is that you need to continue studying strategy and gaining experience.

Of course, it certainly doesn’t hurt to get off to a good start. And by not making the same mistakes that I did the beginning, you can play better and give yourself a stronger chance to win.

An important concept that most winning Texas holdem players
understand is expected value.

The expected value is the average amount you win or lose on a
situation if you were able to play the exact same situation
thousands of times.

It can be difficult to understand expected value on a hand
for hand basis, but if you ran a situation 100 times it can help
make it clear.

Here’s an example:

You’re finished with the betting round on the turn and are
waiting for the river card to be dealt. You have four cards to a
flush and if you complete the flush you’ll win the hand and if
you don’t complete your flush you’ll lose the hand. Nine out of
the 46 remaining unseen cards win the hand for you and there’s
$100 in the pot.

The percentages say you’ll win the hand 19.57% of the time.
You can figure the percentage yourself by dividing nine by 46.

If you play the exact same situation 100 times you win 20
times and lose 80 times. We rounded the 19.57% up to 20.

So 20 times you win $100 for a total win of $2,000. If you
divide $2,000 by 100 times you end up with the average win, or
expected value for this situation. In this case the expected
value is $20.

This is a simplified example and isn’t especially useful at
the holdem tables. But if we take the reasoning and mathematics
behind what you just learned a bit deeper you can find a way
expected value can be quite valuable and useful at the Texas
holdem tables.

If you take this example to the next level consider this
situation.

In the same hand after the turn card has been dealt your
opponent bets $20 into a $60 pot, you can use expected value to
determine if you should call or fold.

The cost of the call, $20, is multiplied by 100 to come up
with a total cost of $2,000 to play the situation 100 times. The
20 times you win the hand you win $100. 20 times $100 is $2,000.
So it looks like your expected value is 0 in this situation.

But there’s still one thing to consider. What happens on the
river when you miss your hand and when you hit your hand? If you
don’t check and fold on the river every single time you miss
your hand your expected value goes below even.

Will your opponent ever call a bet on the river if you hit
your flush? The answer is certainly yes. They might not call
often, but you can get action on the river with a flush. This
actually pushes the expected value of a hand like this to the
positive side.

As a Texas holdem player you need to make it your goal to
find as many positive expectation situations as possible and
play in every one of them possible. You also need to avoid
negative expected value situations like the plague.

The magic of positive expectation is the short term results
don’t mean anything. If you consistently put yourself in
positive expectation situations you’ll win money in the long
run.

Statistical laws show you have to make money in the long run
if you always play in positive expectation situations.

Here’s a list of a few positive expectation situations:

• Getting all in pre flop with a better hand than your opponent. Different
  hand strengths have different positive expectation spreads, but
  any advantage will pay off in long term profit. Pocket aces have
  a huge positive expectation over seven two off suit, but even a
  nine seven off suit has a long term advantage over eight six off
  suit that pays off over time.
• Calling small bets in comparison to the pot size when you a flush draw,
  open end straight draw, or other strong draw.
• Playing in a game filled with players who aren’t as good as you. It’s
  difficult to determine an exact expected value amount in this
  situation but it’s profitable.
• Leaving a table immediately when you realize every other player is better
  than you. You don’t win money in this situation, but you lose
  less so it’s a positive play.

Expected value is often shortened to EV. You may see positive
expected value listed as +EV or negative expected value listed
as –EV.

One of the biggest mistakes Texas holdem players make when
trying to wrap their head around expected value is trying to
figure out how the money they’ve already placed in the pot gets
figured into the equation.

The answer is simple, but most players have a hard time with
it. The money you’ve already put in the pot is only considered
in the pot size. In other words, the money stops being yours as
soon as it goes in the pot.

If you make a positive expected value play on every decision
of the hand everything else will take care of itself.

Examples of Expected Value

The best way to learn how to determine expected value in
Texas holdem is to practice. This section includes many examples
so you can practice for free. When you practice at the tables it
can cost you money.

Take a few minutes and try to figure out the correct answer
before looking at the solution. Remember to run the situation as
if it was identical 100 times. Just follow the simple steps used
in the opening section.

The examples all come first and the solutions are further
down the section. This way you can’t cheat to see the answers
before you try to figure out the answers unless you want to. All
of the examples are using Texas holdem.

Example 1

On the river of a no limit game you have the top pair with a
good kicker but only think you have a 20% chance of having the
winning hand. The pot has $500 in it, you check, and your only
opponent bets $250.

Example 2

You’re playing a $10 / $20 limit game and after the turn you
have an open end straight draw and a flush draw. The pot has
$100 in it, you check and your opponent bets $20.

If you raise your opponent will call on the turn and call one
bet on the river if you hit your straight, but will fold to a
bet if you hit your flush. If you miss your draws you check and
fold to a bet on the river.

Example 3

On the river of a no limit game the pot has $2,000 in it and
you just hit a full house on a board that has three suited
cards. The way the hand played out you’re relatively sure your
opponent hit the flush. You have to act first and are trying to
determine the best way to extract the maximum expected value
from the situation.

You can check and raise if your opponent bets or you can bet.
The mounts of bets and raises complicate the situation, but
being a winning Texas holdem player is complicated, so you have
to make your best educated guess when situations like this come
up.

Based on what you know about your opponent if you make a bet
up to $2,000 she’ll call. If you check she’ll bet $500 and call
up to a re-raise of $1,000.

Example 4

You’re playing in a $20 / $40 limit game and flop an open end
straight draw. The pot has $80 in it at the start of the round,
the first player bets, the second folds, the third calls, and
you’re last to act. The pot now has $120 in it and you have to
call a $20 bet to see the turn.

Example 5

After the river has been dealt you have top pair and top
kicker. You determine you have a 40% chance of winning the hand
because the way the hand has played out your opponent either has
top pair with a worse kicker or hit two pair. Your opponent has
played the hand aggressively enough that you’ve tilted the
percentage to her favor.

The pot has $1,000 in it before your opponent bets $800. Once
you know the break-even expected value it’s easy to see if a
call or fold is more profitable in the long run.

If your percentage is correct what’s your expected value if
you call?

How much would your opponent have to bet to make your call a
break even expected value?

Solution 1

If you call $250 100 times your total investment is $25,000.
The total amount of the pot is $1,000 after you call. Winning
20% of the time means you win a total of $20,000 when you win.
This is a negative expected value of $5,000 total and $50 on
average.

You need to win this hand at least 25% of the time to break
even. You know this because the total investment stays the same,
creating a total amount of $25,000. You divide this by the size
of the pot to find the break-even point. $25,000 divided by
$1,000 is 25, so you need to win 25 out of 100 times, or 25%.

Solution 2

This situation has a host of possibilities so you need to
consider them one at a time. Before moving deeper you need to
decide if a fold or call is correct.

You’re faced with a call of $20 making a total pot of $140.
You have 15 outs out of 46 unseen cards for a percentage of 33%
chance to win. Your total investment over 100 hands is $2,000
and the 33 hands you win return $4,620. This creates an average
positive EV of $26.20 per hand. So you can rule out a fold.

Now let’s consider a raise. Three things can happen if you
raise, so you need to consider each of them and then combine the
results.

The first thing that can happen is you raise, your opponent
calls, and you miss your draws. Your raise costs $40 so over 100
hands you lose $4,000, or $40 on average. This happens 31 times
out of every 46 possibilities, or 67 times out of 100.

The second possibility is you raise, your opponent calls, you
hit a flush, and you don’t win additional money on the river.
Over 100 hands your raise still costs $40, making a total pot of
$180. You win $180 100 times for a total win of $18,000. When
you subtract your investment of $4,000 you have a positive
expectation of $14,000. This is an average of $140 per hand. You
hit your flush 20 out of 100 hands.

The third possibility is you hit your straight. In this case
you bet $40 on the turn and another $20 on the river for a total
investment over 100 hands of $6,000. The total pot size after
all betting on the river is $220, for a total win of $22,000.
This is an average win of $160 per hand. You hit your straight
and not a flush 13 out of 100 hands.

When you combine the results you have the following:

• 67 times out of 100 you lose $40.
• 20 times out of 100 you hit your flush and win $140.
• 13 times out of 100 you hit your straight and win $160
• 67 times 40 = a loss of $2,680
• 20 times $140 = a win of $2,800
• 13 times $160 = a win of $2,080

This makes a total positive expected value of $2,200,
creating an average of a $22 +EV per hand.

When you compare this to the +EV of $26.20 per hand created
by calling it shows both options are profitable but a call is
correct in this situation.

Realize that if you can extract more money on the river than
in this example a raise may increase to a point where it has the
higher EV.

Solution 3

In the first situation a bet of $2,000 in 100 hands is a
total investment of $200,000. The total pot size with your
opponents call is $6,000, for a total win over 100 hands of
$600,000. This is a positive expectation of $400,000 over 100
hands for an average of $4,000.

The second situation requires a total bet of $1,500, covering
the $500 bet and the $1,000 raise. This makes a total investment
of $150,000 over 100 hands. The total pot size is $5,000 so the
total win over 100 hands is $500,000. This creates an expected
average value of $3,500.

So the correct play is to bet $2,000.

This may seem like a simplified example, but this is a
perfect example of the complicated situations you fin at the
holdem tables on a regular basis. When you start considering all
of the possible outcomes for each hand being able to determine
expected value goes a long way to maximizing your long term
profit.

Solution 4

The first thing to determine is the expected value from the
flop to the turn. You’ve seen five cards so the deck has 47
unseen cards and eight of them complete your straight. This
means that 17% of the time you’ll complete your straight on the
turn.

It costs you $2,000 to call the $20 bet 100 times and the 17
times you win the total amount won will be $2,380, assuming no
further action in the hand.

But the odds of no further action taking place in the hand
are slim. Also, what happens if you miss your draw on the flop?

Unless the expected value is close to even you don’t need to
determine how likely you’ll get additional action is when you
hit. If the EV is close to even or slightly negative the
expected future action is enough to push the percentages to make
a call correct. That’s all you need to know to continue with the
hand based on possible future action.

The next thing to consider is what happens when you miss your
draw on the turn. The pot is now $140 and the bets are $40. The
only way you’d ever consider folding in this situation is if you
get caught in a bidding war between the other two opponents, and
even then with capped betting rounds the expected value says to
call.

More likely you’ll face a single bet or two bets at most. The
first thing you need to do is determine if the situation still
offers a positive expectation if you face two bets.

Two bets from each of your opponents make the pot $300 and
you have to call $80, making a total pot size of $380.

You’ve now seen six cards, leaving 46 unseen and you still
have eight outs. Your percentage chance of winning has improved
slightly but it still rounds down to 17%.

Your total cost to call 100 times is $8,000. The 17 times you
win you get $380, for a total win of $6,460, creating a negative
expectation situation of $15.40 on average.

This is where you need to make a judgment call based on how
much you think you can extract from your opponents on the river
when you hit your hand. You need to win an average of $470 total
instead of the $380 listed above to break even, so can you get
over two additional bets on the river when you hit?

An open end straight draw is harder to see when it hits for
your opponents than a flush, and you’re in good position, so you
can probably push your wins enough when you hit to make this a
break even play or a slightly positive EV play. But it’s close,
so it really helps to know your opponents.

What about if you only face a single bet from each of your
opponents?

In this case you have to call a $40 bet and the size of the
pot is $260 with both opponent’s bets and your call. It costs
$4,000 for 100 calls and the 17 times you win the total amount
is $4,420. This is a positive expected value and is a clear
calling situation. You’ll actually win more when you hit your
hand in most situations from action on the river.

The last thing to think about is if you should actually raise
on the flop.

If you raise what will your opponents do? To get a true
picture you need to run every possible situation, but for the
sake of this discussion let’s assume one opponent folds and the
other calls.

The pot has $120 in it, you raise $40, and the remaining
opponent calls $20 for a total pot of $180. Your raise in 100
hands totals $4,000 and you still win 17 times. 17 times $180 is
only $3,060, creating a negative expectation situation.

When you factor in the possibility of both opponents folding
and winning more bets on the turn and river when you hit it
still isn’t enough to make a raise enough. Remember that
sometimes your opponent will re-raise, making the situation
worse.

This is a complicated example so if you don’t understand all
of it, take the time to go back over it and study it. None of
the calculations are overly complicated, but it can be confusing
when you run into so many of them.

Solution 5

It’s going to cost you $800 to call, so you multiply that by
100. So your total cost is $80,000. The 40 times out of 100 that
you win you’ll win a pot of $2,600. 40 times $2,600 is $104,000.
So the total amount of your wins minus the cost of making the
call is $24,000. If you divide this by 100 your average expected
value is $240 every time you’re in this situation.

To determine the break even amount your opponent would need
to bet requires a slightly different calculation. Your opponent
would need to bet $2,000 to create a situation where your
expected value is zero.

A bet of $2,000 costs $200,000 to call 100 times. The pot is
$5,000, so when you win 40 out of 100 times you win a total of
$200,000, creating a zero expected value.

This means that any bet below $2,000 in this situation has a
positive EV to call.

More importantly, consider how important it can be to call
almost every bet on the river if you have a 40% chance to win.
You can work these numbers for any percentage chance of winning
to determine if a situation offers positive or negative EV. Most
players fold too often to small and medium bets on the river.

You can use a complicated mathematical formula to determine
this amount, but it’s simpler for 99% of the population to do a
simple progression of possibilities.

Here’s exactly how we determined that a $2,000 bet is the
break-even point.

We know that a bet of $800 creates a large positive
expectation situation so a break-even will need to be quite a
bit larger than that. So we built a small table and started
plugging in bets.

Don’t be scared or intimidated by these calculations. Once
you do a few of them you’ll quickly learn they aren’t too
difficult. Pick a different situation and build a table to find
the correct break-even point.

You need to practice these quite a bit so you learn to
closely approximate your expected value at the table. It’s
difficult to determine all of this in your head, but as you gain
experience you’ll learn to recognize profitable and unprofitable
situations.

Summary

Expected value is just one of the many tools that winning
Texas holdem, players use, but it’s an important one. Winning
players strive to fin and exploit positive EV plays. If you can
enter more positive plays than negative ones you’re well on your
way to a long term winning career.

How To Know When To Fold In Texas Holdem

Go over the examples on this page and practice the
calculations every chance you get until it becomes easy. It may
be difficult at first but if you stick with it you’ll be glad
you did and it’ll pay for itself for years to come.