Poker Counting Odds and Outs

In this Poker tube Video you will learn how to

1. Count Outs
2. Use the rule of 4 and 2
3. Calculate pot odds
4. Make winning decisions

Step 1- Counting Outs

• Lets say You hold 6s 5s , and the flop is Qs 3d 7s. Your hand has no chance of winning unless it improves
• Any Spade will make you a flush (9 spades) or a 4 will make you a straight. (4-1 card that is a spade). This gives you a total of12 Outs. 12 cards can come that will improve your hand that will hopefully be the winner

Step 2 - The rule of 4 & 2

• Once you figure out how many outs you have, you use the rule of 4 & 2 to determine if what percentage of times you will improve your hand
• After the flop you multiply your number of outs by 4 to determine your chance of improving by the river. In the video example and the one above, you have 12outs x 4 which = 48%chance to make your hand by the river
• After the turn card you need to use the rule of 2. The turn card brings a 8c giving you 15 outs x 2 which = 30 percent chance of catching the winning card on the river

Step 3 - Calculating Pot odds

• After you calculate your chance of winning using the rule of 4 & 2 you need to calculate the Pot odds to determine if you are making winning decisions by calling.
• Lets say the pot has 300 dollars in it, and the other player bets 100 leaving the pot at 400 total. You are being asked to pay 100 dollars with a chance of winning 400. your pot odds are 400 to 100 or simplified 4 to 1. to call 100 dollars your call will represent 1/5th of the pot or 20% of the pot. SO you need a 20 percent chance of winning to justify calling.

Step 4 - Making Winning Decisions

• Lets say you have 5 outs after the flop. You have 5x 4 = 20% chance of making your hand. After the bet there is 200 dollars in the pot. You are being asked to call 100. your getting 2 to 1 pot odds. you need a 1/3 or 33% chance to win to justify calling a 100 dollar bet. You only have a 20% chance to win so in this case folding is the winning decision.

Watching Poker Tube Videos that I have found and collected can be a great way to improve your game so enjoy !!

Online Poker for Fun

Playing online poker for fun , or for free, can be a great way to learn the basics of Texas Hold em. After all, its absolutely free, fun, and in no way will cost you a penny to learn. If you plan on learning how to play on learning poker at a casino, the minimum blinds for these events are usually 1/2 , or 2/4 and the buy ins are usually a $50 dollar minimum and up. Making your learning period an expensive one. You can wait until you get invited to your friends home game, but then you will probably slow the game down a bit, and you will still make mistakes that will cost you money. Home games are usually tournament based as well and maybe you would just like to play poker for fun in your spare time and not have to commit to 4 or 5 hours every Friday night.

So lets take a look at playing online poker for fun or free play. What I would suggest you do is actually install software on your computer from one of the many cash game sites. You can find many list of online poker rooms plastered all over the net and most of them offer free play tables. The reason I suggest this is because you want your No Limit Hold em experience to be as close to the real thing as possible. The next thing is that if you do decide to play for real online poker money later on, you will become familiar with the software and the adjustment will be that much easier for you. Also most sites offer free rolls, that being tournaments that you can join for free and win real money. You can actually build a bank roll from a Zero investment. Everest Poker is a great place to start

The big Difference between online poker for fun, and the online poker for real money

Free play tables are LOOSE. And by loose I mean a wide variety of players will use there play poker money, or fun poker money, in a non caring manner or fashion. They play almost every hand, they will sometimes chase weak draws, and almost always chase strong draws. If you raise AA in late position on free tables you might as well just push all in , because you will almost always get one or two callers because they just don’t care!! They can always reload there online poker chips because they are free!! If you get AA playing for real money in a real money cash game, you would never just push all in because you will almost NEVER get a caller.In these types of games its actually best to loosen up your game as well. Because people are almost always playing worse hands than you !!
This being said, Online poker for fun or free play is still a great way to learn the game. You can learn how the blind structures work, or how strong drawing hands are, or the advantages, or disadvanteges of slow play etc. If you give yourself a goal to make 1000 free poker chips into a million dollar roll you will never find an easier place to do it. Just remember, this is not how real cash games are played, and when it comes to online poker for real money its completetely different.

Free Poker Rules

I have added this very informational Poker Tube Video for you to review and learn your free poker rules. These rules apply to No Limit Texas Hold em

1. A white disk known as the button designates which player is the dealer
2. The  dealer button rotates clockwise to make the game fair as it is an advantage to act last
3. Every hand before the cards are dealt, the players to the left of the dealer are forced to make bets, known as blinds. This starts the action and builds the pot
4. The first player is the small blind and the second player is the big blind
5. All players are dealt two face down hold cards and then there is a round of betting
6. Since the players have already put there bets in, the action starts with the next player
7. Once the first round of betting is complete, three cards are dealt face down in the center of the table. This is known as the flop. These cards are common between all players
8. The second round of betting begins with the first player to the left of the dealer that still remains in the hand
9. After the second round of betting is complete a fourth card is placed face up on the table, known as the turn. This card is also common for everyone at the table
10. There is one more round of betting
11. After the third round of betting a fifth card is again placed face up on the table, known as the river. Once again the card is common for everyone at the table.
12. After one more final round of betting , the remaining players turn there two hold cards face up
13. The player who wins the money in the pot is the player who can make the best hand using there two hold cards and the five common cards on the board. To learn What Beats what in poker click Here

Also to go along with the free poker rules, here is how the betting works:

1. When its your turn and nobody player has already bet you have two options. Check or bet. If you check you are not committing any chips to the pot, you are not betting yet, you are just waiting to see what other players might do after you. If you bet you are putting chips into the pot. You must bet at least the equal amount of the big blind. Other players are required to put in at least the same amount if they want to stay in the hand.
2. If there is a bet already before its your turn to act , you must either call , raise or fold. If you call you must agree to put the same amount in the pot as the player who bet before you. If you raise you make the bet amount larger than the proceeding player. You must raise at least the amount of the bet that proceeded it. If you fold you give your hold cards to the dealer and stop playing in the hand.
3. At any time a player has the option of going all in. If the player how goes all in has more chips than you , you can opt to call all in for just equaling the chips that you have left. If more players are still in the pot, and have more chips than you , they will compete for a side pot.

Well those are the free poker rules for No Limit Texas hold em. Once you play a few hands it becomes very simple !! Watching Poker Tube Vidoes is a great way to learn !!

Success is measured in terms of money and only after long terms of play. I am constantly tweaking my game and making changes to my play style , but I am very careful to make sure that I apply my new poker strategies for a long period of time.

One example of this is when I was a relatively new player I decided that I would try some semi bluffing on my draws.I lost alot of money and stopped semi bluffing PERIOD. I was getting called and missing my draws leaving me even or down almost every session. The problem was that I was playing low stakes, and not choosing the right poker players to semi bluff with. In order for the semi bluff to be profitable I need to be sure that a good percentage of the time that the player I am bluffing will fold. Other wize it is pointless and will lose me money. As I raised in levels, and increased my skills, I still had it in my head that Semi bluffing was horrible play and I was afraid to try it again for fear of losing money.

Now I realize that once the player skill increased due to my level change, and very tight table image, that semi bluffing is the way to go probably 30% of the time on my draws. But ONLY against good players who I recognize as respecting my play and who are very capable of making a fold. OR against any one player (heads up on the flop) when the pot is relatively small on the flop and I want to build it up some in hopes of hitting.

For new players I strong suggest that you avoid semi bluffing on smaller limit tables. It really will not work. Put this in your inventory and save it for higher stakes games, (.50c/$1 and up)

How Do I play my sets when I hit them ??

Most of the time (90 percent or more) I bet them. SO many people slow play there sets on the flop and I love it!! I gets me off the hook easy most time and I can see right through there play because its OBVIOUS!! Check raising is almost always the worst play with a set when you can put your opponent on a strong hand On the flop

Here is an example

Lets say you call a $5 dollar raise to see the flop and end up heads up against a very tight player and you are holding 44. The tight player opens from UTG with an above average raise so we can instantly put him on a bigger pair. You are in the big blind so you are first to act with a flop of 4H 6H 10C (pot size is 10.50) I am eying his full stack of $100 dollars and we have him matched

You bet $9 directly into him. In this spot there are more starting hands that he would raise with on this flop then he would call or fold with. AA,KK,QQ,JJ are all money makers here!! Good players are going to Raise right away so we can use his good play against him by with my aggressive style. I bet $9 dollars into him and there is now 19.50 in the pot he almost has to bet 20 more dollars at least. When this happens it is now your  option and there is now $19.50 +$9call +$20 raise, putting almost $50 in the pot!! I will normally just push him all in right here or at least bet $45.Now he has a very tuff call to make but it looks very easy because most players will not let go of a big pocket pair here.

Now lets use the same hand example but instead of betting on the flop , we check to the raiser. The pot once again has $10.50 to start so he makes a close to pot size bet of $9 dollars.

Now we have 2 options, we can raise him right here, or just call. If we raise, we have just just given the player a reason to be suspicious of us!! OMG a check raise… He is now curious about what we have and does have the option of folding this hand right now for the very low loss of $15 dollars total. My way of playing I made him play his hand correctly in most situations and it costs him more.

If we just check call a flop like  4H 6H 10C this in my opinion is the absolute worse play.  There are alot of scare cards that can come , or he might just be curious now as to why you are calling him. If he is holding Jh Jc for example, the turn card could scare him and you could lose alot of money.  Any heart, ANY Ace, King, Or Queen !! Thats almost half the deck in scare cards!! Also if a heart does come I might be afraid of the flush !! this would slow us both down , and once Again I could miss out on a chance to win a big pot.

Feel free to review a similar hand that I played today

Before you start your online poker career or even begin to learn the online poker rules, you need to first learn the hand ranks in poker, or in other words: “What Beats What In Poker”.

Poker Hand Ranks
Royal Flush

T♥ J♥ Q♥ K♥ A♥

Straight Flush

5♠ 6♠ 7♠ 8♠ 9♠

Four of a Kind

Q♣ Q♦ Q♥ Q♠ 2♥

Full House

Q♣ Q♥ Q♠ 5♥ 5♣

Flush

3♥ 5♥ 8♥ 9♥ Q♥

Straight

5♠ 6♣ 7♥ 8♦ 9♠

Three of a Kind

Q♠ Q♣ Q♥ 5♠ 8♦

Two Pair

5♠ 5♥ Q♠ Q♥ A♣

One Pair
5♥ 5♣ 7♥ 9♦ Q♣

A trap that brand new poker players fall into is that they do not understand how the poker hand is always made up of the best 5cards. Hopefully they are playing online poker for free so that it does not cost them very much money, or at least on a table with me so that I can take their money .In Hold em this is very important because new players who have not learned the basic rule of poker , will  disrespect their “kicker”.

Example: You hold A♥5♠ and the flop is  Q♠ Q♥ A♣

There is a lot of betting and the turn of river is  3♥ 5♣

Giving you a final hand of 2 pairs A♥ A♣Q♠ Q♥ with a    5♣ Kicker !!

Your opponent turns over    A♠ 10♠

Giving him a final hand of     A♠ A♣Q♠ Q♥ with a  10♠ kicker !!

If you are in this stage of learning I strongly suggest that you play online poker for fun, or free first unil you learn the hand rankings. Not knowing what beats what in poker before playing for real money can be a costly.