LounsburySunderland204

This is your introduction to a set of articles designed to provide some idea of what to consider when faced with flop decisions in hold 'em. The purpose of this introduction is part to act as a reference for most of the concepts I employ in the series, as well since act as some sort of disclaimer; No article or book on poker is going to be complete and full-covering, and for stringency it's crucial for you to declare where your limits are drawn. Basic Analysis Methodology

To help us find the right action to take, I'm going to help mostly be with the Fundamental Theorem with Poker. If you're unaware of it, it - when considering this series, at the least - basically means this: Whoever makes the fewest and at a minimum costly mistakes is a one who sales. It applies specifically to heads-up situations, which fits the following series perfectly.

Heads-up limit hold 'em can be a battle of slipups. By "mistake" Air cleaner will add putting in money when you shouldn't, and failing to include money when it is best to. If you may get your opponent to do money when he or she shouldn't, you'll profit. If you can avoid putting in money when people shouldn't, he won't.

When play poker online for money comes down to a struggle of mistakes, hand reading is imperative. Since we'll only most often have one street truly worth of information (preflop), and on top of this my examples are from internet poker rooms, we'll have to settle for some sort of mathematical approach based on percentages given just by PokerTracker stats (see below). If we don't have even a whole lot of ("playing with an unknown") we have to base our actions on what the average player is like and act consequently. Limitations

The heads-up circumstances are presuming that will only two players watch a flop, not that there are only two players at the table. This is a very important distinction because of the effects it has on the possible give ranges. See below regarding blind steals.

Unless otherwise stated, I presume that opponent in the examples I show can be a decent - not expert, not bad - player. Be familiar with mistakes that such a player will create include being a touch too loose preflop, a little too loose on this flop, bluff many times and slowplay too often.

Blind steals are not included. The goal in the articles is to illustrate aspects to consider when two real hands are up against each other over the flop. In a steal situation, one or both players typically have nothing, and quite possibly weak nothings. Knowing how to play in these situations is important, but is not a part of the scope about this series. See this Oblivious Stealing article on an introduction to blind steals. Concepts Utilized Pot odds

You need to know what this is, and not just when it comes to limit hold 'em fail decisions. There are two articles at CardsChat. com that discuss pot possibilities:

Poker Odds With regard to Dummies

Concept: Pot Odds Equity

Another fundamental concept. Read the Poker: Equity article for an introduction to collateral. Donkbet

In limit hold 'em, especially in heads-up planting pots, the preflop raiser can virtually always generate a continuation bet. Therefore, many players wish to check-raise (or only smooth-call) once they flop something superior, and, for reasons I will not speculate about, when a person instead decides to bet into the preflop raiser, could potentially be called a "donkbet" and "donking the flop. " As a sidenote, the term works for the turn and river to boot - it basically means betting into whoever has the initiative. This, of course, can only be achieved by the player using position. Free card account

There are a pair of different free cards plays, both needing position: Opting to never bet in position on the flop to watch a cheap turn, together with betting the failures, leaving open the option to check behind to the turn to see the river. PokerTracker numbers Some reads are presented as pokertracker gambling, e. g. "35/12/1. 5" and these numbers necessarily mean, respectively: VP/PFR/AF.

VP: Volountarily put money in pot. A percentage indication of how loose the ball player is preflop. This value fails to automatically equal "number of flops seen" since a player checking the BB will not get "points" about this scale. PFR: Preflop raise. Percentage of hands this player has raised with preflop. AF: (Postflop) Violence Factor. Sum involving bets and raises, divided by amount of calls, i. orite. a ratio. That ratio, as this name implies, says something about how passive or aggressive a player is.

In get to properly understand the numbers, it will help to have some concept of what "normal" play means. At 6-max event tables, good players usually range between 20/14/2. 5 to help 30/20/1. 8. Note that VP and PFR usually go in hand as they go up, whereas the postflop aggression factor usually goes down with an improved VP. The cause for AF going down is simply that good players will not put in as much money when they're associated with as when they're on top, and a looser player is going to be behind after the flop more often than a stronger player. A semi-loose player usually ranges VP 30% - 40%. Loose players around 40%-50%, and there's the "fun" people who play 50-60% of their hands. Once in a blue moon, you detect a player who will literally play just about every hand, but they're so rare that hoping dissect hands that contain such players don't be worthwhile*.

There are actually, of course, other ways a person can be a winning player without having to be specifically within the range of stats We list above. But they're the exception, not the tradition - and typically of thumb, if someone deviates by a fair margin with these numbers, you could be pretty sure which they're making slipups somewhere, and we will discuss ways to exploit those mistakes on the flop. Having claimed that, stats may be argued indefinitely, but this isn't the focus of this series.

One other stat i will sometimes examine is WTSD which means "Went To Showdown" and is a percentage showing how ordinarily a certain player, when she sees a flop, actually gets to showdown. This is kind of the postflop equivalence associated with VP; how loose a player is once they attempt to continue preflop. Much like AF, this value provides different meanings subject to VP. Someone who sees a great deal of flops, would do well not to attend showdown very often. Someone who : and I get the extreme example - folds everything but AA together with KK would do well to go to showdown virtually usually. A certain benefits of WTSD isn't "good" or "bad" on its own, it's a product or service of how freely you play preflop.