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It sounds like some poker posting is on the table! (pun so not intended)

As I think we’re all coming into this with wildly divergent levels of familiarity and interest, I am going to try to please all the people all the time by writing a thorough yet succinct post that masterfully combines the basics of the game with a few more advanced concepts and experiences. Yep, even though this approach rarely if ever actually succeeds, usually ending up by leaving everyone including the author unsatisfied, my glass is half full, I believe I can make it work! Specifically, my wine glass over here next to my laptop is half full for the third time this evening. Confidence lube!

Wikipedia has a very nice article with a lot of very good detailed reference links for anyone who is interested in really getting into the hand and betting structures of the game, which I am not going to get into here. I will however shamelessly steal some of the high points from them and summarize below:

[Texas] Hold ‘em is a community card game where each player may use any combination of the five community cards and the player’s own two hole cards to make a poker hand. Because each player only starts with two cards and the remaining cards are shared, it presents an opportune game for strategic analysis (including mathematical analysis). Most [Texas Hold 'Em] books recommend a strategy that involves playing relatively few hands but betting and raising often with the hands one plays.

Let me reemphasize that last part. “playing relatively few hands but betting and raising often with the hands one plays” Again! cause you just can’t get too much of a good thing: “PLAYING RELATIVELY FEW HANDS BUT BETTING AND RAISING OFTEN WITH THE HANDS ONE PLAYS!!” (clearly I’m hoping that at least one of the donkeys I regularly play with happens across this post, or even just this one little paragraph…c’mon, man..!)

The importance of mathematical analysis to Texas Hold ‘Em cannot be overemphasized, either. The cards you get, the other players get and what goes in the community card pile is of course entirely random, based upon four suits of thirteen sequential cards. However, whether or not you win at Texas Hold ‘Em is all about your ability to do two things–minimize the monetary damage your lost hands will cause and maximize the monetary returns of your winning hands–and about doing so over time. Any idiot can win a tournament or double up in a cash game once, and the best players have endured short-term losing streaks. Those are how the cards fall, and nobody gets to control that. Long term, you can be a winner regardless of the card falls…if you’re willing to learn some not-too-difficult statistics and the even less difficult concept of “pot odds.”

This is what distinguishes poker from craps, slots, roulette, and pretty much every other casino game there is. There is no long-term strategy that will allow you to win any of those other games. Period. Ignore anyone who says otherwise, cause they probably also buy Lotto tickets, have “lucky numbers” and have personally seen a ghost or possibly an alien at some point in their lives.

Stay tuned! Next post: Rocks, Sharks, Fish, Maniacs, Calling Stations, Donkeys and all the many other characters you will meet at the Texas Hold ‘Em table!