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Small Mistakes vs. Big MistakesIn Limit Hold'em, the bets are a small fraction of the pot. This encourages action because it is cheaper to see a showdown. This aspect of Limit appeals to fish and new players who like to 'see cards.' Most bad players lose money at Limit Hold'em over time and not one any one big hand. This is because they continually make small mistakes. They call when they do not have pot odds, or they continue to call when they are clearly beat. Every time you call when you shouldn't, you are making a small mistake. A big mistake at Limit Hold'em is folding when you should not have. I do not mean folding early and then later finding out you would have hit a miracle river. I mean folding when you have the best hand late in the pot. For example, suppose you have AQ. The board is KQ2 rainbow. You raised the pot preflop and there were 3 callers (8 small bets). It is checked around to you. You bet, someone raises, 2 people call, you call. A 5 falls on the turn. The raiser bets, the other players fold. Right now, there are a total of 18 small bets in the pot (8 preflop, 8 flop, 2 turn- remember a big bet is equivalent to two small bets). What should you do? You are probably beat. However, if you call on the turn and the river, you will invest a total of 4 small bets. If you call to the river, there will be a total of 24 small bets in the pot, so you must win this pot 1/6 or more of the time in order for a call down to be appropriate. Assuming you have 5 outs (which is not the case if he has KQ or AK but let's just assume), you have a 12% chance of drawing out. So, you roughly have a 1/8 chance of winning because you draw out. In this case, you only need to be roughly 4% confident that you have him beat (1/6-1/8). This is very small indeed! Thus, you should probably go ahead and call down, even though you probably are beat. However, many weak-tight players will fold this, which is a disaster if the other player is bluffing or is on a draw. So When to Fold?Basically, there are two major decisions to be made at Limit Hold'em. The first is preflop, whether to play your hand or not, and the second decision is to be made on the turn. The flop decision is not that important because most of the time you will just be making or calling a small bet; this is a decision that can be made almost entirely based on pot odds. The second major decision is on the turn. Assuming you call the turn, you should call the river because it would be a disaster to fold the winning hand on the river. Calling the turn and the river means investing 2 big bets, equivalent to 4 small bets. Assuming the pot is raised preflop and just one bet is made postflop, you would have only invested 3 bets to see the turn. Thus, you can fold at the turn and lose slightly less than half the money you would have lost had you called to a showdown. The river is not the time to fold your hand. The only exceptions to this are when you missed a draw (such as a small flush draw) or if there Before the FlopOne of the most valuable skills in Limit Texas Hold'em is the ability to be very selective about the hands you start with. There are a number of factors to consider when deciding which hands to play:
Tight or Loose game A tight game is defined as a game where few players (2-3) see the flop on average and then fold after the flop. In this type of game you seldom see the river card because everyone has folded. There is almost no reason to play in such games, even if you are an expert player. If you do decide to play in a tight game, your starting hand should be very well selected and you might be able to play 15% to 20% of your starting hands. A loose game, however, is usually where you want to be. In a loose game many players see the flop and tend to go too far with their hands. In these games there exists the possibility of playing more hands, though usually not more then 30% of the hands. Nonetheless, you must still be very selective of which hands you play. How many players are in the pot before you If many people see the flop there is a greater chance for you to play more drawing hands, such as 76s or small pocket-pairs, since these types of hands increase in value in multi-way pots. At a short-handed table with only six players or less, big cards increase in value. Even Aces with a lower kicker than Ten usually become playable. In a full ring game, hands like AT, KT, QT decrease in value as these can easily become a trap hand, meaning they make second-best hands (see Trap Hands). More players generally result in bigger pots since, the more players in the pot, the higher the pot odds become. For example, you can call before the flop with a hand like 76s or small pocket-pairs if you think there will be six players or more in the pot. If there are only two or three players in the pot, a 76s or small pocket-pairs are not good hands to enter the pot with. You want to ensure you get a good price on your drawing hands. If it has been raised If someone has raised before the flop you must have a very good hand to call with or get excellent pot odds. Do not call raises in middle position with hands like AJ off-suit and KQ off-suit (see Trap Hands). However, if you are in late position and a minimum of four players called the raise, you can either call or re-raise with a hand like JTs in the hopes that you hit a great hand when the pot is big. Position The positions are counted from the button. In a full table with 9 to 10 players, you have the button, small blind, big blind, early position, middle position and late position. The three seats after the big blind are called early position, the following three seats, middle position, and the remaining two seats are categorized as late position. The first position after the big blind is referred to as sitting under the gun. This is the worst position to hold pre-flop as you will be the first to act and will be more likely to make mistakes. This is because you will not have as much information as players acting in late position. Therefore, you must be very careful in choosing your starting hand in this position. For example, do not play an AT off-suit under the gun. Although, if you hold the same hand on the button and no one has called, AT becomes a raising hand. The best position is on the button, right in front of the small blind. It is in this position that you will posses the most information when your turn to act arrives. When sitting on the button you will know how many players are in the pot, if there has been a raise/re-raise, etc. This is most certainly the most profitable position. Trap Hands A very common mistake for beginner/intermediate players is to play any two big cards or any Ace from an early position and call raises with the same type of hand. This is one of the biggest mistakes a player can make as these hands so easily become trap hands. A trap hand is any hand that has a high probability of becoming the second-best hand, costing you a lot of money if you flop to it. The most common trap hands are AT, AJ, KQ, KJ, KT, QJ and QT. Many players limp in from early position and call raises in middle/late position with this type of hand. Thus, if you limp with KJ from early position, and someone in late position raises it, you could easily find yourself trapped against common raising hands such as KQs, AK, AJs, AA, KK and QQ (in case a J hits). This also applies when you call raises with this kind of hand. This is a mistake. The most frequent raising hands from early position include AA, KK, QQ, JJ, AQ and AK. Why would you want to call a raise with a trap hand when the raiser is likely to hold one of the above hands? Nonetheless, trap hands are playable in the right circumstances. For instance, if you are in late position and are first in, the trap hand now becomes a raising hand. General pre-Flop Advice
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