Poker is played with a standard deck of 52 playing cards.

The cards are ranked from high to low in the following order: Ace, King, Queen, Jack, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2.

Aces are always high.
Aces are worth more than Kings which are worth more than Queens which are worth more than Jack, and so on.Each player has dealt five cards. You have to end up with the highest-valued hand. Hands are ranked in the following order:

- Royal Flush

- Straight Flush

- Four of a Kind

- Full House

- Flush

- Straight

- Three of a Kind

- Two Pair

- One Pair

- High Card

An overcall occurs when there is already a bet and a call in front of you. You really need to put the brakes on in this situation before you throw more money into the pot. Realize a couple things here, you now must beat two hands and while the original bettor might be bluffing, a caller is not bluffing. While you need a stronger hand to call with than you would to raise with, you need an even stronger hand to overcall with. A lot of players don’t realize this, so you can take advantage of this flaw in their game.

In the best case scenario you will find yourself in the position to overcall with a very strong hand. Your initial action may be to raise here, but look to see how many opponents are left to act behind you and if those players are loose calling stations. If your hand is indeed strong enough you will win more money by letting these players into the pot on the river rather than raising and knocking them out. Remember, on every street you’re trying to get as much money into the pot for you to win as possible and in some cases the action that you think will accomplish this may actually not. Let the poor play of your opponents pay you off in the right situations. You just need to be aware enough to recognize them.

When the pot is small you need to tighten up because there isn’t much to gain by playing loose. If anything, it will be you who contributes most of the money into a pot with one or two opponents, which will add up over time. You need to be much more confident that you have the best hand or a strong draw to continue. Try and bet a marginal hand on the flop to win the pot right there, but if you find yourself on the turn with a bet in front of you and opponents to act behind you continue only with the best hands. Especially on the turn, where the bets have doubled, don’t make the mistake of giving your chips away one call at a time.

If you find yourself with a close decision on the turn and the pot is small, use this factor to lean towards folding. If you do have a strong hand, push the action and bet. You’ll win most of your money in hands with small pots from opponents who call down to the river with weak draws and second best hands. Let your cards and the size of the pot, be your guide.

Let’s continue with the theme from yesterday, head’s up on the river. But now we will look at it from each side of the coin. Obviously you want to act last here, as you would on any other street. If you are in the fortunate position of acting last you can decide how to proceed based on your opponent’s actions. If he checks to you, you can bet with a legitimate hand (an assumption that will apply to today’s entire tip) but be wary of the check-raise. You can bet here if you believe you have at least a 55% chance of winning the hand. If your opponent bets in front of you, call him after you consider the hands he might hold and your chances of beating them. Compare your chances of winning to the pot odds and call if it is favorable.

If you are first to act on the river things become more difficult. Now you have to decide if you would like to bet, check and fold, check and call or check-raise. With a winning hand in this position you’re deciding how much more money you can coax out of your opponent. Should you bet or risk the check-raise and win two bets if your opponent calls? These are the types of questions you should ask yourself at this stage of the hand.

But, be careful to mind the board. That last card could have made someone else’s draw. People are drawn out on in low limit hold’em all the time, even when their opponent had to hit a runner-runner straight or flush and you will usually only get action from these opponents on the river if you are beat. Be mindful of the board if you can be beat, but if your hand is invincible try and get as much money as possible out of your opponent. These extra bets you win on the river distinguish the great players from the merely good players.

When it gets down to the river and you have one opponent across the table from you, you can be sure they have some kind of hand, unless they’re bluffing. This isn’t likely to happen in a hold’em game all the way to the river though. Look at the board and identify any draws or the best hand they could hold. Where do you stand in relation to the best possible hand? Take all this information into consideration and bet accordingly. You may be able to bluff successfully yourself if you missed your draw and a scare card hit on the river. You can bluff on the river in a favorable situation like the one just mentioned if you know you cannot win the pot by checking and the pot odds are profitable in relation to the odds against your opponent calling the bet. Whether you have a hand or not, how you decide to play will likely depend upon your position and how much money is in the pot already.

No matter what you do on the river, remember this: While it is a small error to call one last bet on the river with a losing hand; it is a huge mistake to fold the winning hand on the river and lose the entire pot.

Before the river card falls you give a lot of consideration to the possibilities for you and your opponents based on an unseen card and the chance of that card to improve your chances. Once the river card is dealt, it is what it is. After the river card is dealt your hand only has realized value.

The promise you saw in a hand that had made top pair as well as a four flush draw on the turn was based on both potential and realized value. Your job on the river is now to decide your next action only based upon the realized value of your hand. If the four flush draw misses on the river you are now only playing with the top pair you already made. You need to realize this right away; your hand only has realized value at this point. Your decision to bet, fold or check if you’re first to act or re-raise if someone has bet in front of you can only be based upon your realized value. Understand this, and now proceed with the best strategy to win what is in the middle of the table.

Inducing bluffs is a version of the slow play. You check when you find yourself in a pot with an aggressive player who you know will bet if you check to him. Do this when you have a strong hand on the flop or river. To consider this move a number of things will have to be right about the situation: 1) You must be in the pot with only one opponent. 2) Your opponent must be capable of bluffing but also good enough to fold if you bet yourself. 3) If he does check when you induce him to bluff, the free card will not be dangerous to your hand.

A good time to induce a bluff is on the turn after you have bet on the flop when you hold strong hole cards like Queens and the board is suited. Check to your opponent on the turn and he may try to bluff on the river. If you do this you can pick up an additional big bet on the river and be pretty sure your opponent does not have trips when he bets on the last round.

A lot of time when you flop an open-ended straight draw or a four-flush you will not improve on the turn. If you have two or more opponents you can call a bet and give it one last shot on the river. Watch out for a lot of action on the turn though. If there’s a bet and raise ahead of you, be wary. Make sure the board is not paired so that you’re not drawing dead to a full-house.

If folding is the superior play to checking with your hand, it might be the most profitable to bluff against your opponents. The turn is a good place to do so, if the action leading up to it is passive. This will require that you pull in all the information from the hand to pick a good situation to pull it off. If everyone has checked on the flop, then you have a good chance of pulling off a bluff on the turn from early position, especially if a blank card has fallen.

On most hands you’ll never see the turn, but when you do make it to this turning point in the action without much hope, know when you can correctly continue to the murky waters of the river and when you should fold.

Because checking and calling is rarely correct hold’em strategy, you usually don’t want to give a free card. If there is any amount of money in the pot you will usually prefer to win it right away, unless you have a monster hand (nut flush, full house and up). If you give someone a free card who would have folded to a bet and it makes their hand you have committed a huge error. Only give a free card with a strong hand or in situations where you think someone will bet behind you if you check or you are sure you don’t have the best hand and are equally sure no one will fold if you bet.

While giving a free card gives you a disadvantage, getting one yourself can be quite advantageous. You can do this by betting on the flop when you are in last position on a draw. On the turn when the bets have doubled your opponents will likely check to you and if you have not improved you can check in last position and see the river for free.

The number of opponents you have on the turn is another factor you should consider in your strategy. If you are head’s-up you can use more tricks, like bluffing, slowplaying, semi-bluffing and inducing bluffs. When the hand has many people involved you want to pull back on the fancy play and play straightforward.

You should not completely stop using these moves when the pot gets large, but you need to understand that with many opponents the implied odds have increased not only for you, but your opponents as well. You are probably going to have to show down the best hand to win and if you are on a big draw you don’t have to worry about building the pot yourself because there will already be a lot of action ahead of you.

Let’s talk about positioning in Texas Hold’m for a bit. Position is more important in Hold’em than any other form of poker. The later you are to act, the better. The value you gain from watching all your opponents act before you can greatly influence your decisions. Let’s say you hold suited connectors, 7-8 suited, and the player under the gun raises the pot pre-flop only to be re-raised by the player to his left. The next three players fold and now your eighth to act with your suited connectors. They sure don’t look as attractive as they did 30 seconds ago. In a regular nine-handed game the blinds, player under the gun and the fourth player to act are in early position, players 5-7 are in middle position and the eighth player and button are in late position. Hands you would fold in early position become hands you can raise with in late position.

The power of position is only compounded by the fact that there are four betting rounds in hold’em. In last position you get the advantage of information exposed by your opponent’s actions on every round of betting. Drawing hands become profitable if enough players have limped in, you can give yourself a free card, you can raise with out the fear of being check-raised. When in doubt about a starting hand make sure you factor in all the advantages of late position and the disadvantages of early position into your decision.