How to Decide the Strength Of Your Hand
The First Winning Skill of No-Limit Texas Holdem
You will start playing no-limit holdem in a tournament or one-table satellite. This is because - except for some very big casino cash games and some small casino cash games no-limit holdem is not generally spread as a cash game. It is basically played as a tournament game and it is the game that is most played in the championship even of on-land and online tournaments.
For becoming a successful winning poker game, you have to balance your game. This section will explain how to balance the important factors in tournaments so that you can make it to the final table as often as possible and with as many chips as possible. The quality of your decisions depends on how well you put together these seven factors into your game plan at every stage of the poker tournament.
The Important Seven Factors in Balancing Act
• The strength of your hand
• The size of the blinds in relation to your stack
• How early the limits are going to rise
• How many chips you have
• The size of your bet
• Your position at the table
• The playing style of your rivals
The above seven factors are interconnected. That is, they work together with each other rather than in is location. In some situations, your chip count will play a more important role in making a quality decisions than the strength of your hand. In other situations, your table position plus the playing poker style of your rivals will take priority over your chip count.
No-limit holdem is a game that requires judgment which is very crucial. You may decide to play a hand one way and then, after discussing it with a friend who is prudent, find that he would have played it differently. Who is correct? None of you is necessarily right or wrong. It All depends on how you and your rivals were playing, the amount of chips they had, how many chips you had and the value of your hand in that given situation.
There is more than one way to play every hand. Understanding that, discussing with other good players on the topic of how to play given hands in certain situations can make you a better player. Your differences of suggestion can occur because you and your poker friends place more emphasis on one factor than the other. You are applying things from different perspectives and that is why you see things in two different ways.
Now let us delve into the four important skills that you will need to master the balancing act and win at no-limit holdem. They are as follows:
• Evaluating the Strength of Your Hand
• Deciding how much to bets
• Understanding Your Rivals
• Knowing When and How to Bluff