• Best Texas Holdem Strategy Books
• Ultimate Texas Hold'em Basic Strategy
• Texas Holdem Strategy Chart
• Top Texas Holdem Tips
• Texas Holdem Strategy Book
• Texas Holdem Strategy Card
• Top Texas Holdem Strategy

Table Of Contents

Ultimate Texas Hold’em is one of the most popular live and online casino games for poker players.

One big reason is that if you know what you are doing, the game will feature one of the lowest house edges of any casino game.

Half the battle is just knowing the basic rules of Texas Hold’em, particularly the hand rankings which are common in most poker games.

Texas Holdem Strategy For Dummies. We use Texas Holdem (or Texas Hold’em) because Texas Hold’em is de-facto the most popular poker in all variations. It is often described as “Texas Holdem. Play Position Poker. If you’re not sure what to do when it comes to a Texas Hold’em strategy in poker tournaments, stick to position poker. This means hands like JT-suited, KJ-off, and AT-off should all be.

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About Ultimate Texas Hold’em

Ultimate Texas Hold’em was developed by Roger Stone of Shuffle Master and similar formats are also known under other names including Heads Up Hold’em distributed by Galaxy Gaming.

If you have learned the basic rules of Texas Hold’em, you will quickly pick up on how to play Ultimate Texas Hold’em with the hand rankings and each player holding two hole cards being the same in both games.

As this is a casino, the house will have an edge. Players should experience plenty of winning sessions, but unlike regular Texas Hold’em, players are competing against the house and not a player.

What you might not know about Ultimate Texas Hold’em is that if it is played correctly it has one of the lowest house edges among any casino game at around 2%.

Reasons to play Unlimited Texas Hold’em

• Low house edge of around 2% when following basic strategy
• Fun to play alone or with friends
• Similar to Texas Hold’em
• Can play for just a few minutes
• Potential to win big

Read on to learn more about the rules of Ultimate Texas Hold’em and how to optimize your play to reduce the house edge to almost nothing.

How to Play Ultimate Texas Hold’em

Usually, you can play Ultimate Texas Hold’em at a casino with up to six players and a dealer (also known as the house).

The game utilizes a standard 52 card deck. Although online, you will find many heads-up games where you will compete one-on-one against the house.

Each player must post an ante and a blind before each hand begins. You will see posted minimums and maximums. Keep in mind that your bet must be the same for both of these and that it will also serve as a base for other bets as the hand progresses.

Therefore, we recommend when first getting your feet wet to bet as small as possible to further the power of your bankroll. You can always adjust with higher bets once you feel comfortable that you have optimized your game.

There are also optional side bets which can vary from casino to casino including the Trips bet you can place before the hand is dealt which we will get into later.

Two cards are dealt to each player and the dealer after the initial Ante and Blind bets are placed.

Remember, hand rankings are the exact same as Texas Hold’em.

Check out our detailed description of how to play Texas Hold’em to brush up on Hold’em hand rankings.

You can decide to bet three times or four times the Ante and place the bet into the Play box or check before the flop comes.

A flop is then dealt and you will have an option whether to bet two times the Ante bet or check once again.

The turn and river are dealt one after the other and you will have one last option on whether to place a bet equal to the Ante in the Play box or to fold the hand.

There is a bit of basic strategy that you should either memorize or have a chart with you while playing to best optimize when to bet in the Play box, when to check, and when to fold.

Players that folded after the river was dealt will automatically lose their Ante and Blind bet.

Those remaining in the hand will turn over their cards as will the dealer. If you have a better Texas Hold’em hand than the dealer you win the Play bet for the same amount as bet.

The Blind bet can also only be won if you have won the hand. Assuming this is the case, it is paid out on a sliding scale and can be worth as much as 50 to 1 for a straight flush. However, if you don’t have a straight or better, you will simply just get your bet back as a push.

Here is a look at the potential different payouts of the Blind bet which can vary slightly from casino to casino.

The Ante bet is a bit trickier. If the dealer doesn’t qualify with at least a pair, you will get your Ante refunded as a push. This is the case whether you had a better hand or not, as long as you didn’t fold your hand.

If the dealer qualified with a pair or better, you will need to beat the dealer in order to win this even money bet.

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Best Ultimate Texas Hold’em Strategy

You should quickly get the hang of the rules of Ultimate Texas Hold’em by reading the rules above and potentially watching a few hands being played.

However, we don’t recommend that you hop right into Ultimate Texas Hold’em until you learn some basic strategy as it could turn out to be a nightmare to play based on gut feeling.

For example, if you decide to blindly bet four times your bet in the Play box every hand, you will be subject to a house edge of around 14%. Likewise, if you aren’t betting at the right times, you will also increase the house edge.

You should always bet the maximum allowed in the Play box before the flop when you bet. The following chart should serve as a guide to when you should place a bet in the Play box and when you should fold preflop.

• B = Bet four times in Play box
• C = Check
• S = Bet four time in Play box if suited, otherwise check

The strategy gets a little easier if you didn’t bet preflop. You should bet two times on the flop in the Play box if you have two pair or better, a hidden pair, or a flush draw with a hidden ten or better. A hidden pair means that there isn’t a pair on the board and you are using one or more of your hole cards to create that pair.

River strategy can be particularly tricky. It is easy to memorize what to do but not always easy to make the optimal play in real-time.

Place a bet of equal to your Ante bet if you have a hidden pair or better or the dealer has less than 21 outs to beat you. After some practice, determining how many outs the dealer has to beat you will become more second nature but take your time at first as it’s your money and the game typically doesn’t have a time limit with the exception of some multiplayer online games.

Side Bets

Side bets are usually a way for online and live casinos to extract a little extra money per hand, spin, or dice roll at extremely bad odds.

Best Texas Holdem Strategy Books

This isn’t necessarily the case in Ultimate Texas Hold’em with its optional Trips bets that you will see on just about every table.

It all comes down to the odds that they are paying on the Trips bet as it could be an under 1% advantage for the house under optimal conditions if you can find them.

Your Trips bet can be a different amount than your Ante and Blind bets and is only paid if you wound up with trips or better. In just about every case you are paid 3 to 1 for trips or a set and 50 to 1 if you nail down the elusive Royal Flush.

What you should be looking for if considering to place a Trips bet is a bet table similar to below which gives the house less than a 1% advantage.

Other payout tables might look similar with a Royal Flush paying 50 to 1 and trips paying 3 to 1. However, some smaller differences in the middle of the pay table can make a big difference.

For example, the pay table below would give the house a more than 6% advantage and should be avoided at all costs.

There are other side bets that online and live casinos make available including hole card bonuses and bad beat jackpots.

In general, any side bet that isn’t the Trips bet gives the house a huge house edge and therefore should be avoided.

One exception might be in the case of progressive jackpots where the jackpot is high enough to make the house edge low and, in some cases, even give the player an advantage. One pitfall even here is that the jackpots are few and far between and thus will likely cause you money unless you hit at least one jackpot in your lifetime.

Ultimate Texas Hold'em Basic Strategy

Conclusion

Ultimate Texas Hold’em is a fun online and live casino game that can be played whether you have a few spare minutes or want to grind a long session.

The rules are easy to learn and before long it is possible to master the strategy of the game to reduce the house edge to approximately 2% in the base game.

While it isn’t likely you will become a long-term winner in this game without a bit of luck, it is more likely than many other games to have winning sessions and go on runs to win a chunk of change.

Starting Hand Selection:Chen Formula : Sklansky Starting Hand Groups

In Texas Holdem, it is important to have good starting hand selection. This is important as it prevents you from entering pots with sub-standard hands, which could eventually lead to you losing a lot of money in the process.

'Starting hand selection' is simply choosing the good hands over the bad, and thus folding the bad hands when you get them.

It is true that any hand can win in Texas Holdem (or poker in general for that matter), but the fact of the matter is that some hands will win more than others. So if we stick with the good hands, then we should see better results in the long run.

Basic starting hand selection.

Top tier starting hands - top 2% of starting hands.

Good Texas Holdem starting hands are typically hands like big pocket pairs and big connecting cards. So some of the top starting hands would be:

• AA
• KK
• QQ
• AKs

The little ’s’ indicates that the cards are suited, which will increase the value of the cards because it makes it more likely that they will be able to make a flush compared to if the cards were not suited.

This is obviously the top tier when it comes to starting hands, and if we were to only ever be dealt these starting hands we would be making a lot of money. In fact, if we folded every other hand that we were dealt and only played these hands, there is a fair chance that we would be winning money in the long run. But this would only work at the lower limits where other players probably wouldn't be aware that we only play premium hands.

Second tier starting hands.

Texas Holdem Strategy Chart

If we only ever played with this elite group of cards, we would be folding numerous hands along the way and missing out on other opportunities to win money. Even though these are the cream of the crop when it comes to starting hands, there are still other great hands out there that can win us a lot of money in the long run if we play them.

Such hands are:

• AK
• AQs
• AJs
• JJ
• TT

This gives us another 6 starting hands that we can play with, increasing the number of pots that we will be entering. Although these are not as good as the first set of premium hands mentioned, they are still great starting hands that should help us to win money.

Top 10 Texas Hold’em starting hands.

Now if we stick with this set of 10 starting hands we should definitely by on the right track to winning some money from poker. So for any player new to the game you should try your best to stick to the following top 10 hands (also throwing in some of top 20 hands if you have good position):

1. A A
2. K K
3. Q Q
4. A K (suited)
5. A Q (suited)
6. J J
7. K Q (suited)
8. A J (suited)
9. A K
10. T T

1. A T (suited)
2. K J (suited)
3. A Q
4. 9 9
5. Q J (suited)
6. K T (suited)
7. 8 8
8. Q T (suited)
9. A 9 (suited)
10. A J

Top Texas Holdem Tips

These hands can be played profitable from most positions by experienced players, but you should only play these hands from late position if there has been no action before you (no betting or raising) if you are still learning the basics.

As your game improves, you can look to open up your starting hand requirements and require more marginal hands like suited connectors. However, if you’re new to the game you are better off sticking with the big cards that hit bigger flops and make post-flop play a hell of a lot easier for you.

Starting hand selection and table position.

Your table position should always play a big role in determining the range of hands that you choose to play with.

You should stick to playing much stronger hands from early position than you would from late position.

This means that if you are in one of the early position seats, you should stick to playing the top two tiers of hands and avoid lesser hands like; AQo, AJs, AT, KQs and so on. Conversely, if you are in late position and there has been little action before you, you can afford to play these sort of hands far more comfortably.

Why is table position important in starting hand selection?

If you are one of the first to act in a hand, you are going to be at a serious disadvantage to the rest of the players who are acting after you. Therefore, to avoid making things worse, you do not want to be entering a pot with anything less than a premium hand.

Acting first means that you are going to have little information on your opponents. If you are playing with a mediocre hand, it is likely that you are going to be in a spot where you have no idea whether you have the best hand or not. These situations are the ones that lose you the most money in poker, so avoid falling into them by playing stronger hands from early position that will make it easier to determine whether or not you have the best hand.

The importance of starting hand selection.

Starting hand selection is key because it helps to save us from sticky situations post flop, especially if we are new to the game.

Starting hand selection example.

Say for example we are not exercising very good starting hand selection and we decide to call a raise with K T. The flop then comes K 8 2 giving us top pair, which looks like a very strong hand. Our opponent bets into us and we decide to call, because after all we do have top pair.

The turn comes a 4, and our opponent bets once again. We have top pair and we call seeing as we are still happy with the strength of our hand.

The river comes a 7, and our opponent bets into us one final time. We make the call with our top pair thinking we might still have the best hand, but our opponent turns over K Q.

He also has a pair of Kings but he has the higher kicker, so he takes down the pot.

Starting hand selection example evaluation.

This is an all too common problem for poker beginners, and it could have been so easily avoided by being a little stricter with our starting hand selection. Having top pair is great, but all so often an opponent can easily beat it with a better kicker. This is why it is important to have two big cards instead of one, because the size of our kicker can play a vital role in determining who the winner of the pot will be.

You are dealt two cards in Texas Hold’em; make sure that they are both good cards before you enter a pot. An ace with a low kicker is going to lose you more money than it wins.

Texas Holdem Strategy Book

Don’t be tempted to call raises or enter pots with hands like A4 (rag aces) or K7, because they will just get you into more trouble than they are worth. Make sure that you are the one with the better kicker every time and take the money from the players who are entering the pots with weaker hands than you.

It is actually reasonable to bring down our starting hand requirements if we have good position. Position will give us an advantage over our opponents if we are last to act, so we do not necessarily have to have such a strong hand to play with because will be obtaining information from the way our opponent plays because they will be acting first.

This information and knowledge of our opponent’s hand from the way they play will compensate for the fact that our starting hand is a little weaker than normal. However, we still have to be prepared to fold as having position does not guarantee that we will win the hand, it simply gives an advantage. It is advised that you only enter pots with weaker hands in position once you have become a little more experienced.

Texas Holdem Strategy Card

Conclusion.

As you continue to play poker and gain experience from the game, it is a good idea to start expanding your starting hand requirements and experimenting here and there. However, if you are new to the game it is strongly advised that you stick to the big cards so that you give yourself the best opportunity to win money from poker.

If you are entering pots with a poor hand, you should be expecting to see poor results.

Go back to the awesome Texas Hold'em Strategy.

Top Texas Holdem Strategy

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