- No Limit Texas Hold'em Poker. No-Limit Hold'em is game of general strategy, basic tactical skills useful in all forms of poker, and a game of intense psychology. Let's first go over general strategy. There are two things you should quickly figure out when you enter a no-limit game: 1. What types of players are my opponents?
- It's late in a no limit tournament. The blinds are 150/300 and you've got a stack of about 1500 chips. There's three players left and you're on the big blind.
NLHE is an abbreviation for No Limit Texas Hold’em. This abbreviation leaves out the T for Texas, which can make it less obvious in what it represents. It is used as an abbreviation for this popular poker game both online and in card rooms. Other abbreviations and synonyms are NLH, No limit Texas Hold’em, No-limit Holdem.
Because a pot in No-Limit poker can easily get out of hand, having a strong hand with a high success rate is vital. For beginning poker players, it is therefore recommended to adopt a tight-aggressive strategy. This implies that you fold the great majority of your hands preflop, but once you get dealt a strong hand, you play it very aggressively. No Limit Poker Strategy That Works. In a game of no-limit poker, also called NL, a player in a hand can actually bet every single chip in their stack at any time during the hand – when the.
What Does No Limit Mean?
Limit refers to how much a player can bet on any single bet. No limit means that at any point in the game a player can bet as much as all of the chips they have on the table, which is known as going all-in. The other players must match the amount to call the bet, or can go all-in themselves for less. If the player loses the hand, they are out of the game unless there is a rebuy allowed.
Besides going all-in, a player can bet more than the minimum required bet or raise more than the minimum required the amount of a raise, anywhere up to the amount of chips they have on the table. In most games, a raise must be by at least as much as the blind for a first raise. For a re-raise, it must be at least as much as the previous raise.
This is in contrast with limit games where the amount allowed for each bet is set and the players cannot bet more than that amount. For example, for the first and second bet of a hand, the amount might be set at $2, with the amount for the third and fourth bet set at $4. In pot limit games, the maximum raise is the current size of the pot.
No Limit Texas Hold'em is the usual format for poker tournaments such as the World Series of Poker (WSOP). Many people have become familiar with watching it played in televised tournaments. It is a common format for playing poker online. Non-tournament limit games are common in casinos and card rooms. They may be listed with the word limit and amount of the limit (such as $2/$4).
Texas Hold'em Poker
The game of Texas Hold'em originated in Texas, with its birthplace officially designated as Robstown, Texas. It was introduced to Las Vegas at the Golden Nugget casino in 1967.It became popular with professional players because the four rounds of betting on each hand allowed for strategic play. When Benny and Jack Binion created the World Series of Poker in the early 1970's, they featured no-limit Texas Hold'em as the main event of the tournament.
The basic rules for Texas Hold'em are that two to 10 players are dealt two hole cards. They place bets in sequence around the table or choose to fold their hands. Three cards are dealt, the flop, which the players can use to complete the best hand. There is another round of betting and folding and then a fourth card is revealed on the board. Then another round of betting (or folding) and the fifth board card is revealed. Any remaining players can again bet or fold and go to a showdown to win the pot.
If I were teaching a new player to play no-limit hold’em, and my goal were to get this player up to a professional level of play, how would I do it? What would my lessons look like?
Let’s say I had only three months to do it. With most people, I will admit, it would be a tall order. The learning curve is steep these days, and I don’t think everyone could make it from zero to pro in that short a time.
I’d have to make compromises. I couldn’t try to cover every possible situation. I’d have to find the important bits and skip the rest.
I’d also have to tailor the lessons a bit to a specific type of game. The most important skills in some game types are not as important in others. With this in mind, here are what I think my top five lessons would be for a new player trying to beat the $2-$5 no-limit hold’em games in Las Vegas.
Lesson No. 1. Don’t limp into pots ever. And don’t call preflop three-bets unless you are trapping with an ultra-premium hand.
Limping into pots, calling the preflop raise, and then check/folding the flop when you miss is an enormous leak. It’s also one that nearly every player who hasn’t been specifically coached out of it exhibits.
In my opinion, most players would see an immediate improvement in their winrates if they simply refused to limp in with any hand, especially if they chose to instead fold most of these hands.
For most players, refusing ever to limp means playing much tighter, particularly from out of position. Until you’re already an established pro player, tighter is better.
Lesson No. 2. Don’t pay off big turn and river bets.
This lesson might be different in some types of games, but in the Las Vegas $2-$5 games, it’s easily a candidate for the single most important piece of advice. Do not pay anyone off. When someone makes a big turn or river bet or raise, your one pair hand (or whatever other hand you’re thinking about calling with) is a bluff-catcher. That means, in the great majority of cases, your opponent won’t be trying to make a value bet with a worse hand. Either you’re beat or your opponent is bluffing. And players in these $2-$5 games do not bluff often enough to make calling worthwhile.
So you don’t pay off. I know it can be frustrating to feel like you’re getting muscled out of a huge pot, but the fact is, most players in these games do very little muscling. They try to make hands, and then they bet the hands they make. A big bet usually means a big hand. You don’t need to call to find out for certain.
Lesson No. 3. Your opponents will limp into pots, call raises, and check/fold flops. Take advantage of this weakness by raising lots of hands with position, betting the flop, and often also betting the turn.
It’s a simple play, but it’s one that generates a very consistent profit in these games. Players play too loosely preflop, are too willing to call preflop raises after limping in, and are too willing to check/fold the flop or turn if they miss. With many players, you can ignore your cards and raise the limps, bet nearly all flops, and bet most turn cards as well.
Say two typical players limp in a $2-$5 game. You raise to $25 on the button. Both limpers call.
The flop comes 10 8 2. They check, and you bet $50. One player calls.
The turn is the 5. Your opponent checks, you bet $120, and he folds.
In this scenario, and in many like it, it doesn’t matter what you have. Your opponents are beating themselves by playing call/call/fold so often. All you have to do is put the bets out there and let your opponents run repeatedly into the brick wall.
Yes, there is some nuance to this, and some boards are better bets than others. But against many opponents at the $2-$5 level, most flops, turns, and even rivers are good bets. Keep betting until your opponents prove to you that they won’t beat themselves by folding too much.
Lesson No. 4. With value hands, don’t try to blow opponents out of pots. Instead, play most value hands with the goal of keeping a player in through the river.
Value hands — hands like top pair, two pair, or any other hand you think is a favorite to be best — lose their value when all your opponents fold. If you win without a showdown, you might as well have been holding 7-2. (See Lesson No. 3.) With your value hands, you generally want opponents to get to the river.
Most players like to see showdowns if they feel like they can see them without losing too much money. No one likes to fold and think, “What if I was good?” If your opponents get to the river, often it’s an easy sell to get them to call a final value bet (as long as you don’t make it too big).
Calling these value bets is one of the biggest mistakes that $2-$5 players make. (See Lesson No. 2.) Allow your opponents to make this mistake.
Most players try to end hands early when they feel like they have the best hand. “Don’t want to get drawn out on,” they think. But this is backward thinking. End hands early with strong bets when you have nothing but a weak draw. Allow hands to reach showdown when you actually have something to show down! (Makes sense when I put it that way, doesn’t it?)
If I have top pair, I’d much rather get called for $30, $50, and $80 on flop, turn, and river than get called for $30 and then blow my opponent out of the hand with a $100 bet on the turn. The chance to win $160 with the hand instead of $30 outweighs the risk that I’ll get outdrawn.
Lesson No. 5. Think every hand about what strategies your opponents are using and how they’re thinking, and (almost) ignore the two cards in your hand.
I’ll put it bluntly. Most $2-$5 players beat themselves. They tend to play strategies that are extremely transparent, overly simplistic, and inflexible. You can beat some of these players simply by betting every time it’s your action (See Lesson No. 3.) You can beat other of these players simply by waiting for hands that beat top pair/no kicker and then making value bets. (See Lesson No. 4.)
Your job as a poker player is to identify the strategy each opponent is using and deploy a counter strategy. In many cases, the two cards in your hand become irrelevant. My experience is that the players that are always thinking about their hands never figure it out. It’s the players who are thinking on the next level that do. ♠
Ed’s newest book, Playing The Player: Moving Beyond ABC Poker To Dominate Your Opponents, is on sale at notedpokerauthority.com. Find Ed on Facebook at facebook.com/edmillerauthor and on Twitter @EdMillerPoker.
Low Stakes No Limit Poker Strategy
