Texas Hold’em For Dummies®
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2006927731
ISBN: 978-0-470-04604-3
Manufactured in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6
1B/RV/QT/QY/IN
Mark “The Red” Harlan was born in Rawlins, Wyoming, and has lived exactly the life you’d expect as a result. Armed with a degree in Applied Mathematics (from a university he loathes so much that he refuses to even utter the name), he fell headlong into a 20-year stint in the Silicon Valley’s computer industry.
Red’s professional experience includes human-interface work at Apple Computer, development of the bidding schema used by eBay, overseeing application development at Danger (makers of the T-Mobile Sidekick), as well as co-founding CyberArts Licensing (suppliers of the poker software seen on the MANSION and GamesGrid sites).
At the tender age of 8, he won a pinewood derby competition in the Cub Scouts, giving him his first heavy swig of victory that would forever warp his oh-so-soft-and-pliable mind. Under the influence of this experience, he started playing poker that same year (“might as well win money if you’re going to win”) and became good enough by 2005 to be a net money winner in that year’s World Series of Poker.
Red is a member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors and has an extensive writing background ranging from penning InfoWorld’s Notes from the Fringe during the heyday of the Internet, to being lead author of the book he thinks everyone should own (his mom does): Winning at Internet Poker For Dummies (Wiley). Red maintains a Web site of poker articles at www.redsdeal.com and welcomes non-spam e-mail at RedsDeal+HEFD@gmail.com (be sure to include the +).
This book is dedicated to my mom, Marijane, and my brother, J. Scott Harlan, mostly because you’re two saintly islands in a world that could desperately use more of your type, and a little because you’ve put up with me all these years.
Biggest thanks of this go ’round goes to Leslie “All Ska” Dill for providing the cheerleading, support, and total lack of advice that were all precisely what I needed during the most stressful time of my life. You know what you did. I’m glad you did it.
Super thanks to my agent Margot “The Sunny Negotiator” Hutchison, for suggesting that I write this text, as well as driving through all my crazy contract requirements.
Extra thanks to Elizabeth “Exclamation Points!” Kuball for acting as my project editor and not freaking out when I say crazy things in phone conversations.
A nod and a wink to Gridders: UCD Aces, ifoundnemo23, and yanksalex. You guys are the reason I worked on poker sites for a living, I just didn’t know it at the time.
Lingering but totally necessary thanks to: Josh “Birdhead” Carter for continual computer expertise and extensive ideological support; Taqueria Eduardo (TE) for having the greatest carnitas on the planet; Max “You’re Not ‘Erik’” Francis for ongoing poker discussions, loans of his poker library, and companionship at TE; Dino for not selling Dino’s after all; Konstantin Othmer for repeated favors and questions; Fishbone for not quitting; Chris Derossi for a zillionty and one things; Radiohead for being the only band that matters; and Clarus at the Bitmap Café.
We’re proud of this book; please send us your comments through our Dummies online registration form located at www.dummies.com/register/.
Some of the people who helped bring this book to market include the following:
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Composition
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Title
Introduction
About This Book
Conventions Used in This Book
What You’re Not to Read
Foolish Assumptions
How This Book Is Organized
Icons Used in This Book
Where to Go from Here
Part I : Everything’s Bigger in Texas: Welcome to Texas Hold’em!
Chapter 1: A Bird’s-Eye View of Texas Hold’em
Considering Why You Want to Play
Working with Game Dynamics
Moving Up a Notch
Places You Can Play
Chapter 2: Ranking and Reading a Hand
Hand Rankings
Reading a Hand
Paying a Hand
Chapter 3: Just Tell Me How to Play: Texas Hold’em Basics
The Order of Play
The Dealer Button
Dealing the Cards
Posting Blinds
Betting
The Importance of Your Bankroll
Poker Etiquette
Part II : Texas Hold’em: Play by Play
Chapter 4: Beginning with Two
The Importance of Position
The Hands You Should Play, by Relative Position at a Table
Considering the Players in a Hand
Hands You Should and Should Not Play
Using “Fold or Raise” to Make a Call
Chapter 5: Flopping ’Til You’re Dropping
Fitting or Folding
Betting the Flop
Calling a Bet
Raising the Dough
Check-Raising
Getting a Free Card
Chapter 6: Taking Your Turn
Watching a Hand Fill Out
Keeping Track of the Action
Chapter 7: Dipping in the River
Final Betting
Showing a Hand . . . or Not?
Watching for Mistakes
Part III : Movin’ On to Higher Stakes: Advanced Strategies of Hold’em
Chapter 8: Playing the Players
Classifying Players
Looking for Tells
Zeroing In on Specifics
Chapter 9: Bluffing: When Everything Isn’t What It Appears to Be
Bluffing Basics
When to Bluff
Who to Bluff
The Semi-Bluff
Getting Caught — Now What?
Chapter 10: Maximizing Your Win: Check-Raising and Trapping
Check-Raising
Trapping through Slow Play
Maximizing Your Returns
Chapter 11: Camouflaging Your Play and Dodging Traps
Setting Expectations throughout a Game
Avoiding Pitfalls
Chapter 12: Considering Mathematics
Delving Fact from Fiction in Math and Poker
Taking a Shortcut with Math
Taking a Shortcut with Math
Using Math to Your Advantage
Chapter 13: Advancing Your Knowledge
Playing with Game Theory
Cashing In on Equity Theory
Part IV : Casinos, Card Rooms, and the Internet: Places to Play Hold’em
Chapter 14: There’s No Place Like Home: Playing in Private Games
Determining the Level and Type of Play
What You Should Give
What You Can Get
Chapter 15: Opting for the Internet: Online Games
Choosing a Site
Watching Your Back
Chapter 16: Harrah’s, Here I Come: Playing in Card Rooms
Playing in a Professional Card Room
Avoiding Common Mistakes
Trying to Score a Jackpot
Chapter 17: Competing in Tournaments
Coming to Grips with the Differences
Understanding Your Chip Position
Playing Your Way Through
Adjusting Your Play for Prizes
Part V : The Part of Tens
Chapter 18: Ten Differences between Online and Real-World Play
Not Telling in Live Action
Adjusting to Speed
Understanding Position
Taking Up Space
Getting at Your Cash
Becoming “Serious” in the Real World
Adding Up Online Mathematics
Tipping the Dealer
Changing Your Venue
Keeping Track of Your Online Cash
Chapter 19: Ten (Or So) Common Mistakes
Playing Too Many Starting Hands
Playing Tired
Playing Too Low or Too High of a Limit
Coin-Flipping Too Often in Tournaments
Ignoring What You Know about Players at Your Table
Becoming Impatient
Staying Too Long in a Tough Game
Letting Your Emotions Get the Best of You
Treating Your Internet Money Like It’s Fake
Chapter 20: Ten Ways to Improve Your Home Game
Upgrading Your Deck
Chipping Up
Chowing Down
Lighting Up
Venting It All
Trashing the Place
Wiping Out the Badness
Standardizing Chairs
Getting Tabled
Renting Your Game
Chapter 21: Ten Bad Beats
Red versus Spudnut
Woman Beaten by Madness
Hellmuth Yanks His Hair Out
Nuts about Flushes
Moneymaker
Moneymaker, Part Deux
When Wheels Go Flat
No-Limit Means No-Money
Mr. Aggressive versus Johnny Conservative
Not All Beats Are Bad
Chapter 22: Ten Things You Can Do to Improve Your Hold’em Game
Studying Your Way Up
Showing Off Your Game
Keeping Track of Your Bankroll
Exercising
Digging into the Math
Reading Poker Web Sites
Scoring a Free Magazine
Throwing in the Towel
Varying Your Opponents
Playing Other Games
Glossary
End User License Agreement
Turn on the TV, drop by a news rack, spend ten minutes in any college watering hole, or for that matter walk into your local supermarket and you can see firsthand the stranglehold that Texas Hold’em has on the public. Twenty years ago, when I’d play Hold’em in a casino, it wasn’t unusual for people to stop and ask me about the game. (I just have one of those ask-that-guy-he-looks-harmless kind of looks, I guess.) Now my mom tells me about it.
Hold’em is a game that is deceptively simple: There are four chances to bet (pre-flop, flop, turn, and river) and five ways you can act when you do (check, bet, call, raise, or fold). Yet within that simple mechanism, you’ll find truth and trickery, boredom and fear, skill and misfortune — in other words, direct reflections of the things that make life worth living.
Hold’em is a game of both skill and chance — and infuriatingly, which of these things is the most important often changes without warning. Needless to say, this interaction is what makes the game gut wrenching at some times and great at others. If you want to find a sucker, don’t hang out at a chess table. Then again, if you can’t take being beaten by chance, it’ll be better for your blood pressure if you spend your spare time knitting instead.
Amazingly, about 95 percent of the people who play Hold’em in a professional card room (be it online or at a casino), lose money — all because of the insidious nature of the rake (a small cut of every pot the house takes). Don’t lose hope, though. Hold’em is a game that can be beaten, and by buying this book and referring to it often, you’re absolutely taking the right first step.
This book is a grand overview of Texas Hold’em.
All Dummies books are designed as references. You don’t have to read it from beginning to end, cover to cover. My advice is to treat it like a salad bar: Load up on the things you’re most interested in, and pass on the items that seem a bit too smelly.
In some of the later chapters, I make reference to concepts and ideas I cover earlier, but the cross-referencing here is heavy. I always point you back to the fundamental concepts for brush-ups.
Don’t stress out as you read these pages. You’re not expected to remember everything and, hey, you can always come back to anything you need to be recharged on.
New terms are always written in italics, with a definition that follows close on its heels. If you’re a text skimmer and find yourself running across a new word you don’t know, back up until you find the italicized word (or just look in the glossary or index). You might also see italics used for emphasis — and I can definitely get emphatic from time to time.
Monofont is used for Web sites and e-mail addresses. There aren’t a lot of site references in this book, and you certainly don’t need to have access to a computer to learn or play poker, but there are some very valuable references out in cyberspace that you need to be aware of.
The sidebars you see in gray text are not required reading for the book, but will usually relate to the text being discussed to illustrate it more fully (or in some cases, it’s just me trying to make you laugh). You’ll find a sidebar at the end of this Introduction.
Don’t worry about any of the paragraphs labeled with a Technical Stuff icon. Those are present merely for completeness and to give more illumination to the terminally hard core.
There are two chapters you should bypass at the start. Get a little more general theory and practice under your belt before you tackle them:
Chapter 13: This one is all about the concept of game theory and assumes you already understand the other poker concepts that are in this book.
Chapter 22: Get solid in the other topics in this book before you go out and try to get even better.
Remember:
You need a good foundation before you can build a fancy house.
I’ve made several assumptions about you as a reader — might as well clear ’em up right here to avoid any future embarrassment. I assume that
You’re familiar with playing cards. You know that a deck has 52 cards, with 4 suits and 13 cards in each suit. You know what a Jack, Queen, King, and Ace are.
You would rather beat other people in poker than have them beat you.
You have any range of poker experience going from none to
a lot.
You want to improve your game, no matter how good it is, right now.
Trying in vain to get a cocktail waitress’s attention is worse than having one stop by your table when you don’t need her.
I’ve organized this book in parts to make it more readily digestible. Yum.
Chapter 1 gives a synopsis of larger concepts you’ll run across in the book: how the game is played, how to play the game, and where the game is played.
The remainder of Part I talks about the hand rankings in poker, how to read a hand, betting, blinds, and etiquette. It’s this section that also talks about one of the most important facets of the game: your bankroll.
This section covers, in detail, the betting and play surrounding your hole cards, the flop, the turn, and the river. It includes getting hints as to whether you’re holding a winner or a loser and subtleties like check-raising.
This is where things start getting really meaty. Knowing how to play other players at the table, bluffing, and trapping are all covered here. This part is also the one that deals with math (including pot odds) and game theory.
If there’s one part you should really focus on in this book, it’s this one.
If you can play poker someplace, I talk about it here. This is also the place where I fill you in on tournament play.
All great For Dummies books have a Part of Tens. In mine you find:
A comparison between online and real-world play
Common mistakes people make in Hold’em
Great ways to make your home game better
Bad beats (because everyone likes a good horror movie)
Ways to get better
Most For Dummies books don’t have a glossary (and neither do lame poker books), but poker is so full of slang that I felt a glossary was almost mandatory. New expressions in the text will always be in italics followed by the definitions — the glossary wraps them all together in a nice, tidy package.
Icons are those little pictures in the margin that flag your attention for a particular reason:
Where you go is totally up to you. If you’ve never played Hold’em or poker before, just carry on into Chapter 1. If you have played, but you find yourself always losing, I suggest going to Chapter 8 and reading about the other players you’re up against. If you’ve played a lot and just happened to pick up this book, either on a whim or at a friend’s house, flip to Chapter 13.
And hey, if you ever want to check me out, go to www.redsdeal.com or send an e-mail to redsdeal+hefd@gmail.com. I’ll respond to anything I get (as long as you aren’t a spammer).
Before I started writing this book, the last time I played Hold’em was in the 2005 World Series of Poker (money winner, thank you very much). I figured I should be playing as I wrote, to keep the game more alive.
Playing only in tournaments, over the course of three months, and never playing in tournaments where my entry fee was more than $33 (although some of my wins were to satellites in bigger-entry-fee events), I have won:
$3,596.85 in cash
A $535 satellite seat for the World Series Main Event
A $535 satellite seat for the World Series H.O.R.S.E. Event (Hold’em, Omaha, Razz [7-Card Stud Low], 7-Card Stud, 7-Card Stud Eight or Better [high hand splits with low hand])
I mention this not to brag (well, at least not too much), but to illustrate a point: Because you play Hold’em against people, the game is beatable. I won this using nothing more than years of practice combined with the exact concepts I put forward in this book.
If you practice and pay attention, you can — and will, over time — win.
Good luck to you.
In this part . . .
Think of it as Texas Hold’em 101. I walk through the rankings of poker hands, the mechanics of Hold’em, proper poker manners, and bankroll basics. Your introductions to everything from flopping to dropping are all here.