MillerSturdivant676

This is the introduction to a few articles designed to provide some idea of what to consider when confronted with flop decisions in hold 'em. The aim of this introduction is in part to stand for a reference for some of the concepts I make use of in the selection, as well since act as a form 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 written. Basic Analysis Methodology

To help us find the right action to take, I'm going to mostly be while using the Fundamental Theorem of Poker. If you're not familiar with it, it - when considering this series, at least - basically suggests this: Whoever makes that fewest and smallest costly mistakes could be the one who profits. It applies specifically to heads-up circumstances, which fits this series perfectly.

Heads-up limit hold 'em can be a battle of mistakes. By "mistake" Air cleaner will add putting in money whenever you shouldn't, and failing to include money when you must. If you can usually get your opponent to put in money when your dog shouldn't, you'll profit. If you can avoid putting in money when people shouldn't, he won't.

When play poker online boils down to a battle of mistakes, hand reading is vitally important. Since we'll only most often have one street well worth of information (preflop), and on top of this my examples are from internet poker rooms, we'll ought to settle for a 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 will have to base our actions on what the average player is like and act accordingly. Limitations

The heads-up situations are presuming that will only two players see a flop, not there are only two players in the table. This is a critical distinction because in the effects it is wearing the possible give ranges. See following regarding blind steals.

Unless otherwise stated, I presume that the opponent in the examples I show is a decent - not expert, not awful - player. The kind of mistakes that such a player will get include being a little too loose preflop, a little too loose on the flop, bluff too often and slowplay many times.

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

You have to know what this is usually, and not just when it comes to limit hold 'em flop decisions. There are two articles with CardsChat. com that discuss pot odds:

Poker Odds For Dummies

Concept: Pot Odds Equity

Another fundamental concept. See the Poker: Equity article for an introduction to equity. Donkbet

In restrict hold 'em, especially in heads-up containers, the preflop raiser might virtually always create a continuation bet. Accordingly, many players like to check-raise (or just smooth-call) when they flop something superior, and, for reasons I will not speculate about, when a player instead decides to bet in the preflop raiser, this is often called a "donkbet" or "donking the fail. " As some sort of sidenote, the term works for any turn and river as well - 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 two different free charge cards plays, both requiring position: Opting to never bet in position on the flop to view a cheap turn, together with betting the fail, leaving open the option to check behind to the turn to read the river. PokerTracker reports Some reads are presented as pokertracker gambling, e. g. "35/12/1. 5" together with these numbers mean, respectively: VP/PFR/AF.

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

In order to properly know the numbers, it will help to have some knowledge of what "normal" enjoy means. At 6-max event tables, good players usually range from 20/14/2. 5 to 30/20/1. 8. Note that VP together with PFR usually go in hand as they increase, whereas the postflop aggression factor usually goes down with an improved VP. The cause for AF going down is simply that good players do not put in the maximum amount of money when they're at the rear of as when they're ahead of time, and a looser player are going to be behind after the flop more often than a firmer player. A semi-loose person usually ranges VP 30% : 40%. Loose players around 40%-50%, and there's the "fun" people who play 50-60% of their total hands. Once in the blue moon, you find a player who will literally play every single hand, but they're which means that rare that intending dissect hands that includes such players is not going to be worthwhile*.

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

One other stat that i will sometimes examine is WTSD which stands for "Went To Showdown" and it is a percentage showing how often a certain player, once she sees some sort of flop, actually extends to showdown. This is kind of the postflop equivalence with VP; how loose a gamer is once they decide to continue preflop. As with AF, this value offers different meanings subject to VP. Someone who sees a whole lot of flops, would do well not to go to showdown very often. Someone who - and I get the extreme case - folds almost everything but AA together with KK would do well to venture to showdown virtually always. A certain value of WTSD isn't "good" or "bad" without attention, it's a product or service of how loosely you play preflop.