It’s a fact, sad for some us but poker has a big math basis

Fortunately, standard poker math is not rocket science, and there are a number of simple tricks to help you with your calculations.

Two Primary Concepts

The 2 basic math concepts are calculating outs (and your chance of hitting them) and pot odds.

I am looking at Pot Odds here. I did Outs in the last article. See the link at the bottom of this page to find the last article.

If you don’t understand pot odds then you can have no clue if a call will be profitable, this is especially critical in postflop spots and allin’s.

Say you are Heads Up and each of you has 10BB stacks.

> Player 1 moves all in preflop. Player 2 must now decide to fold or call.

> This situation means that the pot is 11bb – the 10bb from player 1 plus 1bb put up by player 2, player 2 must decide to fold or to call 9bb for the chance to win 11bb.

This is generally expressed as a ratio, the size of the pot to the size of the call needed. In this example the pot odds are 11 to 9. Simplified, this is approximately 1.2:1.

This means that for a profitable call, player 2 has to win 1 time for every 1.2 times they lose (or, in other words, once out of every 2.2 pots).

When a player is getting 1 to 1 on their money, they need to win the pot 50% of the time to break even calling. They make a profit when they win at a higher rate than that.

But if they can get 2 to 1 then they only need to win 33% to break even calling, that equals 1 win for every 2 losses, or said another way 1 win out of every 3 pots. So when short stacked this is why it’s right to move all in lighter and call allin bets wider.

The blinds represent a large percentage of our chipstacks, giving us the pot odds to call (remember, if we’re even winning 35% of the time getting 2 to 1 it’s a profitable call).

The key with pot odds is to put your opponent on a range of hands and calculate the equity of your hand against that range. No messing, it’s hard and you need a lot of practice.

When faced with a call or fold situation, though, it comes down to estimating your outs against your opponent’s range (count your outs and use the rule of 2% and 4%) and compare that to the pot odds you’re getting. Don’t know what I mean with the Outs? Check out the big version of this lesson at the NoPay blog, link at the bottom of this page.

For example, if you have 9 outs on the flop with a flush draw, our call is profitable if we’re getting roughly 2 to 1 or better.

36% chance to hit our flush and win the hand, and getting 2 to 1 pot odds we need to win 1 time in 3, which is 33%. So we should call, as we make money long term even though we win the pot well under half the time.

If we’re getting 1 to 1 odds, though, we need to win half the time. We just win ~36% of the time, so we can readily fold.

It’s important to remember, though, that pot odds are only perfect in call-or-fold spots when our calling ends the action in the hand, either because our opponent is allin or it’s on the river and our call or fold will end the hand.

18% equity) to continue, for example).

If you have grasped all things up to this point, you’ve already learned some important concepts from this article.

In the next free online poker lesson we’ll look at implied odds.

Or if you want to learn about that now and also check out how to calculate Outs get over to the NoPayPOKER.com free online poker training blog where all is revealed.

Some people may be surprised that poker is a math-based game.

The reality is that poker is a game of frequencies, percentages and number formulas such as implied odds. Yes of course there is some chance (or blind luck) in poker. Even the best players get bad losing runs and terrible players will big pots now and again.

But math and the correct application of poker math equals profit long term.. Odds of hitting your cards, weighting your opponents’ ranges towards certain hands, and understanding how to exploit your opponents based on their tendencies (which can be broken down into percentages).

Happily, for most people, poker math is not so hard once learned and there are some tricks you can use to help you get it down.

Two Primary Concepts

The two most basic math concepts in poker are calculating your outs (and consequently your percentage chance of hitting one of them), and calculating pot odds.

In this article I am covering calculating outs. Next time we’ll do pot odds.

If you didn’t know, an Out is a card that you think will make your hand into the best hand.

> Let’s say you know your opponent has top pair on the flop, and you have 4 clubs (2 in your hand and 2 on the board).

>There are 13 cards of each suit in the deck, and you know that if you hit a pair your opponent will still have a better hand than you.

> There are nine Clubs (13-4) left in the deck. For now, we’ll consider it irrelevant that your opponent may hold a club – out of the 47 cards left unknown (you know 5, your 2 hole cards and the 3 on the flop), 9 are clubs.

> As your opponent has Top Pair you know that if you get a club you will improve to best hand, therefore the 9 remaining Clubs are your Outs.

Here’s a simple rule of thumb which is very very important.

> On each postflop street, any given card has about a 2% chance of coming (1/47 on the turn, 1/46 on the river).

> Therefore, you have approximately an 18% chance to hit on the turn, and another 18% chance to hit on the river.

If you’re placed in a situation where you’re forced allin, you realize the 36% chance to hit one of your 9 outs (18% on 2 streets), but remember that you may face another bet on the turn if you’re not allin, so you may have to fold before seeing the river.

With regard to simplicity, we’ll assume the chances of hitting runner-runner 2 pair, a runner-runner straight, etc is negligible (in reality you possibly have 9.25 or 9.5 outs as opposed to just 9).

If you’ve grasped everything up to this stage, well done, you’re on your way in poker math.. In the next free online poker lesson we’ll look at pot odds.

Alternatively you can go and check out my much longer full lesson on poker math, Pot odds, implied odds, reverse implied odds and more at the NoPayPOKER.com free online poker games training blog where you will discover all and get a link to a helpful pro if you’re stuck.

Gurus determined some achievable bankrolls and also you might often locate facts that says a fantastic bankroll to start with should really be about 300 occasions larger that the price of 1 bet. So, if you want to play a $2-$4 gameplay, then your bankroll ought to be some thing like $1,two hundred, 300 times better compared to major bet. This may get the job done, but it is too common. You have to definitely appearance into your enjoying design. When you are a stable player, that thinks each individual hand and folds typically when needed, then you in all probability do not have to have that a great deal. If, however you might be quite loose and play almost many of the hands, then you will likely be associated with many pots and you simply could have to have additional.

The type of video games played can be an essential factor. In case you play draw poker then you definately want much less dollars than in triple draw. It’s just some calculus along with the resolution is obvious. Also so me games have far more betting rounds that other video games and these online games require an prolonged bankroll.
 
Also, once you play no restrict holdem this restrict is way far too minor. If the significant blind of your gameplay is $3, the bankroll of $900 is way as well small for this sort of video game. Below yow will discover your self while in the circumstances the place you may have to bet $50 at any given time, and just dividing you’ll be able to obviously see that if elevated and re-raised the wager may be very high and you simply can stop up loosing each of the bankroll in just a few periods. The key for an suitable bankroll is usually to allow it to be match into your statistic. The greater game titles we will play the more likelihood to enhance our bankroll now we have. So in the event you only have $1,two hundred to spend for this, then tend not to decide on a no limit recreation. It can be for the ideal in the event you look at your financial options also, because you really don’t want to conclude up taking part in simply to win, currently being afraid in the least days that you simply are likely way too eliminate your bankroll and be broke. Taking part in terrified will only make you eliminate, so really do not do it.

The card dealing takes place exterior the management with the player. Therefore within this edition of the recreation, the gamers endeavor to regulate the total cash within the pot. They need knowing their particular hand and would try to make the very best guess of what their opponents hold as component of their hands.

This model of poker entails numerous specials. A dealer will hand the offer out on behalf of the true individual to deal. The offer button will rotate toward the left at the conclude of each round. And at the end of each deal the pot is handed to a participant. In case of ties called showdowns, the people till require to point out their fingers at the conclude from the hand as well as the pot will go to the one particular acquiring the very best hand. Also, the situation may be that each one but one particular participant has folded. In cases like this the pot goes towards the one who did not fold.

href="http://pokercastle.com" target="_blank">Poker is a recreation of talent and understanding, and being greedy cannot assist you to win within the more time expression. You wouldn’t trouble to win each personal hand close to. You would fairly need to continue being mathematically appropriate about figuring out the most effective possibilities to fold, boost or get in touch with and decide simply how much to bet. Such methodical subsequent can make sure that you simply just take the probabilistic expectation maximization route for every of the rounds of betting. Therefore the long run rewards are fantastic.

Texas Hold Em is definitely an extremely outdated edition of the game of poker. The histories go back to the early twentieth century. This edition from the sport was invented while in the United states of america. However it earned recognition if the Web took it to a massive scale then when an amateur player on the web won the planet championship in 2003 the popularity with the game exploded. Since then, it’s been a terrific journey forward for this recreation – a shut cousin of the basic game of poker.

You may not know if but poker-tips" title="Poker Tips, Techniques, and Strategy">poker, like say a martial art, can be split into schools of play.

Broadly speaking there are just 3 schools of poker but from each one there extend many sub schools.

School 1 is old school, literally. It is based on 10-Jack as a premium pocket and is heavily focused on Implied Odds. This was a favorite way to play by pros like Doyle Brunson, Amarillo Slim, Mike Caro, and many others who are now in their 70′s and 80′s.

The 2nd School is based on the concepts of Playable Pocket matrices, Position, Pot Odds and Positive Expected Value. This type of play was the hallmark of players like Phil Gordon, Dan Harrington, Humberto Brenes, and T J Cloutier.

The 3rd School 3 is the latest and focuses on reading players in regard to ‘Ranges’ and advocates Tight Aggressive (TAG) play as the core methodology, 3rd school is the approach taken by just about all the new breed of very successful, and normally young, online poker players as well as live table competitors.

It’s the main reason why most of today’s major tournaments yield a final table with an average age of about 27 or 28 years old.

Poker is a constantly evolving game; what used to be profitable back in Doyle’s young days would in no way be profitable now.

Today, players are largely capable of 3betting and 4betting as a bluff, something unheard of even 10 years ago! And as proof of the evolving nature of the game we are seeing new ideas coming into play now such as ICM and Nash Ranges which are not common knowledge and really “ahead of the game”.

The thing with poker is that if you’re not keeping up with the curve, you’re falling behind. But before we get into some more advanced ‘cutting edge’ concepts, we need to catch up and fully ground ourselves in the way poker is understood TODAY.

With each school there are some positives, maybe not so much from school 1 now but it could well be that elements of school 1 will become more viable again as poker becomes even MORE aggressive.

The good thing about school 2 poker is that it’s relatively easy to learn and apply, and for playing low limits (anything through .05/.10 online and $1/$2 live) you’ll definitely be able to profit handily playing school 2. If you really get good at it, I wouldn’t be surprised if even .25/.50 online and $2/$5 live was beatable playing that way.

School 3, on the other hand, is much harder to learn as it’s much less concrete. Fore example there is no set playable hands matrix and no defined places to call, raise and fold. The answer is almost always ‘it depends’, so how successful you are as a school 3 player is based on how well you can read your opponent’s ranges and exploit their tendencies.

This takes a lot of time and practice to get good at, and it’s far more variable than school 2 poker. Though to compete at high level today and to really smash lower stakes school 3 thinking really is a necessity.

Yes, it is possible to play school 2 at a high level and make small profits but todays real bruisers like cash players Tom Dwan, Phil Galfond, Daniel Cates and tourney killers Ben Lamb and Elky Grospellier are pretty much only school 3 – and more advanced in their school 3 methodology than anyone else on the planet too, which is why many older school pros are moving into 3rd so that they can stay at the top table.

As I said at the start this isn’t a how to win article as such but I’d say it is a “what do you have to know in order to win” which is to be a good school 3 player if you want to play higher stakes or be a pro.

On the free poker online training blog we’re now building a new course range of school 3 education articles so why not pop on over and have a look and then try your hand at playing school 3 in the free poker games on the main NoPay site.

Convenience

There is obviously a level of convenience found in internet poker tournaments since you can play them at your house, instead of driving some place in town. You have access to tables any time of the day you want, and you can still play against live people. The one catch is you play with a screen name or avatar. Everything else is identical, but it happens right at your house for your enjoyment.

Secrecy

If you do not have a very good poker face, the web will probably be the perfect place for you to go to play a game. People cannot watch your reactions if you play online. Most US poker sites will offer you a chance to either use an avatar or at least generate a username to hide behind. This is the only information that gives away who you are in the slightest, and you can work that out so nobody knows anything. You can be a completely different person online and work that to your advantage.

Speed

Everything happens faster with online poker since it is automated. Dealing is quick, betting is quick, action is quick, and everything is done for you. You are left with a game which takes a tiny part of the time a normal one would, giving you more time to spend the money you just won. Assuming that there’s not any disconnections on your table, you can get through a game with great ease.

Accuracy

Because everything is automated online, the concept of human error is practically eliminated. Pots are always split evenly, and you can be certain that every player puts in the proper amount of chips if she or he wants to play a hand. The accuracy of the computer cannot be matched by anything else, which is great when you’ve got money on the line. You can be sure that your money is safe in internet poker rooms.

Bonuses

You will get internet poker bonuses that you obviously cannot get elsewhere. They are designed to release money to you after you play for a certain amount of time, and they literally offer you free rewards simply for being around. You can find bonus codes that you can get from some websites before signing up with an actual poker site, and with these you can create an account and get free money as you play. If you can find these bonus codes, your internet poker experience will be better than it would be naturally.

Location

For those in the audience from the USA, not all internet poker rooms will accept you. You will need to find one that does. The simplest way to do thisis to find a U.S. poker sites web portal. These portals have done the work for you and are very reliable.

Overall there are 4 main types of poker player, tight-loose and passive-aggressive.

In the free poker and online nanostakes (.02/.05 blinds), each of these player types make a few key mistakes.

In this href="http://www.nopaypoker.com" target='_blank'>free online poker site article we focus on postflop play against the Tight Aggressive type opponent.

Tips on how to combat the Tight Aggressive Player (TAG) Type

In microstakes games, these are generally the most solid opponents you’ll face, but thankfully they’re also pretty rare.

Basically, TAG is how we should be playing at these stakes and we should generally avoid getting into large pots with other TAGs.

Typically the TAG will open with sensible ranges preflop for raises and be more aggressive postflop.

They will be cbetting pretty wide but closing down on later streets a fair amount and they’re most unlikely to spew off their stacks by check-raising or betting down with air.

That said, they also won’t be calling down with their weak pair hands (think second pair and often top pair hands) or draws (without proper odds.

They’ll just be generally getting out of the way OOP (Out of position) when they have nothing and playing a solid style IP (In Position) that’s hard to exploit centered around playing solid hand ranges and betting often for value and to get folds out of other tags and tight-passive players.

They don’t get out of line too much. The profit strategy with TAGs when you are In Position is to cbet flop wide (you will get lots of folds) and to slow down when you’re raised.

When you’re OOP, the only real way to exploit these players is to be check/raising flop and turn wide, but you don’t really want to be check/raising with air against thinking players especially at nanos, it’s just super high variance, unnecessary, and will lead to a lot of ugly spots (like when you get flatted after c/ring).

TAG is the way you should aim and practice to play, it’s solid and hard to exploit, stay solid unless you have a strong reason to do otherwise, choose your moments and you will get a lot of profit from the mistakes of others.

And keep in mind there are degrees of player styles. Some TAGs are almost LAG, some TPs are almost LPs, etc, so you have to adjust your play to your individual opponents, these player types are just a tool to help you do that.

One thing you have probably realised by now is that learning to spot and use player styles is not an exact science.

You need to practice your game plenty though for some of you it will come faster than others. If you’re new to poker do not risk much or even any cash as you learn.

Kick off by playing micro stakes or free online poker games and slowly work your risk levels up.

For the big edition of this article which covers all the player styles and adds some further postflop tips see the play free poker online blog at NoPayPOKER.

Overall there are 4 main types of poker player, tight-loose and passive-aggressive. In free online poker micro stakes (.02/.05 blinds), each style of player tends to make certain key errors.

In this free poker online article we are focusing on postflop play against the Tight Aggressive type opponent.

Tips on how to defeat the Tight-passive (TP) “rock”

These players are pretty common at nanostakes games.

Typically they limp rather than raise and call rather than 3-bet (that is reraising preflop) and they do not play many hands as a matter of course.

They’ll rarely raise you postflop without a true nut hand (think sets or better, usually) and won’t call down without hitting a strong piece of the board (typically top pair).

Thankfully, their tendencies also make them simple to play against.

Their ranges are typically limited to pocket pairs and high card hands (KQ, AJ+ for example), so a ton of middling flops (T84r for example) can be cbet basically 100% as we’ll get folds a ton of the time. You should look to cbet flops wide and shut down on the turn/river if you get called on the flop with no strong reason to continue.

Continue betting down after the flop if you have a strong top pair or better. With our draws, we can again check it down until we improve and then bet (although we will rarely get value in those spots).

They are east to play, remember that they only raisxe with premium hands and fold too much so raise and bet a lot of flops to take their money.

Do always remember that there are levels of player types. Some TAGs are almost LAG, some TPs are almost LPs, etc, so you have to adjust your play to your individual opponents, these player types are just a tool to help you do that.

One thing you have probably realised by now is that learning to spot and use player styles is not an exact science.

You need to practice your game plenty though for some of you it will come faster than others. If you’re new to poker do not risk much or even any cash as you learn. Start of with the lowest stakes games or with free online poker games and work up from there.

For a full version of this article with all 4 player types covered and some advanced postflop play tips see the free online poker education blog at NoPayPOKER.