Playing Texas Hold'em online

You may start playing Texas Holdem after a few hours of practice, but may need a lifetime of study, skill, and intuition to really master this poker game. Winning a Texas Holdem game is about intuition, daring, skill, and strategy. More importantly, to become a master at Texas Holdem you should learn to think, eat, and breathe the game. This holds whether you are playing in one of the online poker rooms or in a brick-and-mortar casino. We provide you with tips, tools, and strategies to help you keep winning in Texas Holdem -- consistently. Calculating Odds If you want to make money in Texas Holdem you can't escape working with some mathematics.

Poker odds are a mathematical guide referred to by good poker players to take certain courses of action during a poker game. The top poker players use odds to determine their actions in a game. If you are not good at mathematics, well, better get good at it fast! Of course, you could take the alternative of memorizing the odds for each type of hand, but someone who can calculate the odds will be a far better player. This becomes all the more important in online poker where you cannot take decisions from the reactions of your opponents. There are four odds that a Texas Holdem player has to focus on: Outs, Pot Odds, and Hand Odds.

You use Outs and Pot Odds the most in Texas Holdem

Outs: The number of cards left in the deck that will help you make your hand. If you hold AK of clubs and have two spades on the flop, there are 9 more spades in the deck since there are 13 cards of each suit. So you have 9 outs to complete your hand. Pot Odds: The ratio of the current size of the pot to the amount you would have to bet to stay in the hand. So, if there is $40 in the pot, and you would need to bet $10 to stay in the hand, the pot odds are 40 to 4, or 10 to 1. However, you have to keep in mind that pot odds should be calculated one card at a time, not from the flop to the river. This is because the pot odds will change as betting takes place on the turn to the river. Bet Odds: The odds you get if you evaluate the number of callers to a raise. Implied Odds:

The odds you are get after the assumed result of betting for the remainder of the hand. Bet odds and Implied Odds are more difficult than Outs or Pot Odds because the former involve predicting the reactions of other players. However, they are not as difficult as they sound. If you keep trying to apply these while you play Texas Holdem they will come to you eventually.

There are several poker odds calculators available online to help your with your poker strategy. Skilful use of poker odds, along with other poker strategies, can definitely take you to the top of Texas Holdem. Beating the Rake A rake is the amount received by a casino or an online poker site in return for hosting a game. Internet poker sites have less overheads and therefore charge very small rakes. A typical rake is 5 per cent of the pot up to a certain amount, say, $3 per pot in a low limit game ($2-4 to $5-10). The poker rooms can either rake each pot or charge the players for the time played. In some poker rooms the rake is taken out of the pot directly. In others each player posts a collection before the hand begins.

The strategies for beating the rake are different for each type of rake collection. Some online poker sites follow a 'no flop no drop' policy which is beneficial to players. It means no rake is taken out of a pot if the pre-flop action causes everyone but the last player to raise or fold. So how can you minimize the rake you pay? The secret is to win fewer, but larger pots.

This way you lose less money to the rake than players who win the same amount of prize money through winning more small- and medium-sized pots. Here's an example: Suppose Player A gets wins 10 small to medium sized pots, wins an average of $30 each time, and pays an average of $1.50 in rake for each one. At the end of the day he has won $300 and paid $15 of it in rake. Now Player B gets wins three $100 pots which are raked $3 each. He too has won $300 but pays only $9 in rake. Definitely Player B had a better strategy when it came to beating the rake. So you should play only premium starting hands. Fold after the flop if you didn't come up with much. Tight players win fewer pots and cut down on the rake. However, if a time charge is applied, it costs everyone the same.