There are various reasons for players wanting to play in higher stakes. The two biggest motivations for moving up in limits are to improve your game or to increase your win rate. When you really think about it, they both have a correlation. To earn a decent income from poker you are required to play in higher limit games, but the bigger games also have tougher competition, so it’s crucial to improve one’s skill to beat the games.

As a player you are required to constantly be learning and studying the game in an effort to be constantly improving. If you are not making an attempt to improve your game and your opponents are, you will be left for dead and will get run over at the tables, which can be devastating if you move in limits.

Confidence is the biggest factor when deciding to move up in limits. If you are happy with your game and have the bankroll to move up in limits then you should take a shot. Like I said, you can’t expect to improve your game if you are not playing against better opponents, and there are fewer competent players in the lower limit games, so the sooner you move up the better, if your bankroll supports it and you have the confidence!

If you take a shot at the higher limit games and things don’t quite go to plan, you can always move back down to regain the confidence and your roll. Even though it can be a costly lesson the experience you have gained is immensely important and you will learn from your mistakes. Just make sure that you do actually step down in stakes if you are not winning when you move up in limits. Don’t let your ego get in the way!

One of the common mistakes inexperienced players make when trying to move up in stakes but are unsuccessful at this new level, is they fail to step back down and then take a huge hit to their roll. The problem is these players love the action of playing in higher stakes even though they are losing, and struggle to have the discipline to move back down. It’s like buying a Ferrari only to have to sell it and drive a Ford instead.

So what is the best strategy for moving up in limits, but still be safe about it? I think the easiest way to do this is to take shots slowly in a progressive manner. What I mean by this is for example, let’s say you normally multi-table 4 tables of 50nl. If you were wanting to step up in stakes, instead of playing 4 tables of 50nl, instead play 2 tables of 50nl and 2 tables of 100nl. So, you are still playing the same number of tables and hence won’t be rushed in your decisions. You will know if you’re mentally ready to stay playing 100nl when you’re no longer intimidated by the players at this new limit when you are taking shots.

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Good poker players know that you should be using table image to your advantage. The main objective is to use this table image to take down additional pots because your opponents perceive that you play in a certain way. By executing this correctly, you are adding an element of deception to your play, which is crucial to a winning poker player’s strategy.

If you have a tight table image, you want to use it to steal pots and bluff in certain spots where you must have a big hand because previous to the hand you have always got to showdown with the nuts.

Similarly, if you have a loose table image, when you make a premium hand, make sure to play it in the same way. I see so many bad loose players try and slow play their big hands when they actually have the nuts, this is incredibly bad because they would have got paid off due to their table image.

Winning players understand the importance of creating a loose aggressive table image so that they can get paid off with their big hands. The key is to try and portray a very loose table image without actually burning money on stupid bluffs. There is an art to doing this and what professional poker players are best at doing! They make it appear that they are more aggressive then what they in actual fact really are!

This can be achieved by getting to showdown with a few rubbish hands for cheap. Players will be thinking omg he is playing those rubbish hands, he must be a bad player. Or you can decide to raise a lot of hands when you can expect to get a fold. This concept ties in with 3betting light, which is a common occurrence in 6 max games. When you pick the right spots to 3bet as a bluff, players will notice that you are 3betting a really wide range and will play back at you when you finally pickup a monster. You are almost guaranteed to get action on your premium hands, as players will begin to get frustrated from the constant pressure you are putting on them.

Not only should you be concerned with your own table image and how you are perceived at the table, but you also need to be reading the table image of other players. Always be one step ahead of them an know when they are making adjustments to manipulate their own table image.

By having these qualities it will establish you as a solid player, one with unpredictable tendencies and deceptiveness. Using your table image to your advantage is the key to playing profitable poker.

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Double barrel bluffing can be tricky to execute successfully because your opponent has shown that they have some sort of hand by calling your flop bet. If you pick the wrong spots to be double barreling as a bluff, it can be a costly mistake, so it’s really important that you identify the right situations to try the double barreling play.

First of all, you want to setup the double barrel with a believable continuation bet. Good boards to continuation bet will be dry boards because its unlikely to have hit your opponents calling range. If your bet gets called when you have missed the flop. you now have an opportunity to double barrel. The main factors to consider when double barreling are board texture, your opponent’s playing styles, table image, and our perceived range.

Failing to consider your opponent tendencies can be a huge mistake when you are trying to double barrel bluff: There is no way you are going to pull off a double barrel bluff against a calling station who is calling you down with bottom/middle pair or is calling with bad odds to chase a draw. The opportunity shouldn’t even present itself when playing against stations because you shouldn’t cbet bluff them to begin with, just bet a wide value range.

Your double barrel bluffing works best against tight players who are playing a narrower range of hands. When these players are calling out of position, even though there will be some draws and slow played sets on the flop, the significant portion of their calling range is pocket pairs. Because you can put them on a pretty narrow range, its easier to know when to double barrel bluff. Just because they called on the flop doesn’t mean they like their hand enough to continue with it on the turn and later streets. A pair is not a big hand, especially when you consider the players you are targeting when double barreling is weak tight players!

So what are good double barrel cards? These are cards which villain expects to help your perceived range, which more often then not is over cards to the flop. The reason for this is that when your opponent calls your bet on the flop, they are likely doing it with a weak hand, at best they have top pair. If they have a strong hand they would raise with it. So when an over card comes on the turn like an A or K, it hits our raising range hard and its really difficult for them to call with a weaker hand when you know their range is pocket pairs for the most part.

A mistake inexperienced players tend to make is they won’t double barrel bluff enough. If you are cbetting with a high frequency and giving up on the turn a lot, this is a big leak in your game. It would be optimal to just check/fold the flop if you were doing this, however by reading this article you hopefully have a better understanding of when to be double barreling.

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In 6 max poker, and even full ring games for that matter, 3betting with hands which have blockers is something you will want to incorporate into your game, as a way to incorporate more successful bluffing strategies which can be hugely profitable versus the right type of opponents.

First of all, let’s discuss what I mean by hands with blockers. Here is two versions of hands with blockers in Texas Holdem; A4s and K2s. Basically, they are hands with an ace or king. These hands are referred to as blockers because due to card removal theory, there are fewer hand combinations your opponents can have for them to have a premium hand like AA/KK/AK for them to continue with when facing aggression.

So, hands with blockers can be good to 3bet light with, as in all likelihood your opponents don’t have a premium hand. Let me be clear that you are not 3betting these hands for value because you have the A or K. If you have a bad kicker you have a rubbish hand, but for the above reasons they can be good hands to 3bet as a bluff.

However, two conditions need to be met when you are considering 3betting with blockers. Firstly, you should only consider doing it when you can expect your opponent to fold the majority of their range. If they are calling a 3bet with a wide range, so for example when you 3bet light with A4s, you would expect your opponent to fold better aces like AJ< and only continue with AK/AQ, so it can be protiable to be 3bet bluffing because they are folding the majority of their raising range.

Hands like suited aces are superior hands in 3bet pots, even when you are called when your opponent has a big pair, you still have decent equity to win the hand if you spike an ace.

The second thing you want to keep in mind when 3betting with blockers is your opponent’s calling range. Like I said, you really only want to do it when you can expect a fold.

Don’t get carried away with 3betting with blocker hands. If your opponents view you as a 3bet monkey then your 3bets will get no credit and they will start to make adjustments and 4bet light against you. Obviously, you can’t continue with the hand when you have ace rags.

There are lots of pre-flop strategies that can be uses based in Texas Holdem. In fact, in 6 max games which tend to be more aggressive, it is crucial that you adopt an aggressive pre-flop strategy to prevent getting run over by your opponents at the table, otherwise you will never get paid off with your big hands.

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Hole Cards

This is by far the most important factor when deciding to enter a pot. Premium holdings such as pocket pairs and AJ+ should always be raised 3-4BBs plus 1 for each limper. This prevents limpers getting cheap pots odds with their drawing hands, and it also allows you to narrow down the hand ranges of opponents on the flop. Your typical calling hands will include suited connectors, high connectors (e.g. 910), broadway cards and aces suited. Most of these have the implied odds to call. Unfortunately, around 80% of the hands you’re dealt will need to be folded. Junk hands such as 72o are the worst, however generally speaking anything that doesn’t have “drawing” potential should be check-folded.

In term of 3betting (re-raises), you should be hitting back with QQ+, or JJ too in late position.

Position

Position is the 2nd most important factor before choosing your starting hands. Common table positions include the blinds, UTG (under the gun), mid-position, late-position and CO (cut off). Strictly speaking, the earlier your position, the more hands you should fold. This is because you will have the least information at the table and will be out of position for each of the future streets (i.e. you will have to act first). In late position, you can afford to play a looser range of hands such as suited connectors, high connectors and low pocket pairs. From early position, you should fold virtually all of your non-premium hands however you can afford to play the occasional marginal hand if the table is weak/passive.

Stack Sizes

A lot of players play badly when short-stacked (under 30xBBs). To call raises with low pockets pairs e.g. 22, you need to be aware of the 10% rule. You should only call raises with multiple callers in the pot behind you or when the raise is worth less than 10% of your opponent’s stack. This is to ensure you get the right implied odds for playing pockets, as hitting a set will only happen 1/8 times.When big stacked, you should be willing to play a higher range of hands and bully the table. For instance, by blind-stealing in late position or raising marginal hands 3xBBs in mid-position, you can force your opponents to fold pre-flop and also improve your folding equity for bluffing on later streets.

One of the biggest mistakes new poker players will make is they will call raises with dominated hands like ATo or QJo. This can be a costly mistake for inexperienced players because they lack the post flop skills to be able to get away from the hand when they make some kind of hand on the flop.

Dominated hands are worthless because they will usually only when a small pot when you do have the best hand, but they have the potential to lose a big pot if you have the second best hand. For example, let’s say the UTG player open raises and you call with AJo on the button.

The flop comes A 8 5 rainbow. The preflop raiser makes a continuation bet and you call. The turn is a 4 which really doesn’t change anything, and the preflop aggressor bets the turn for 2/3 of the pot. You know this player is fairly tight and you haven’t seen him get out of line. The best play is probably to fold. When you are facing a lot of aggression and you have top pair with a reasonable kicker, then you can be pretty confident that you will have kicker issues and you won’t have the best hand. You can avoid spots like this by not playing dominated hands preflop.

The best strategy for beginners is to tighten up preflop so as to avoid tough spots on later streets where you can be unsure if you have the best hand. This can be achieved simply by throwing your dominated hands in the muck, because that is what they are worth. Beginners tend to overestimate the value of Ax and Kx hands especially when they are suited. While they can have some potential in multi-way pots, when you are only facing one raise and you don’t anticipate many callers, it’s best folding the hand because you are more then likely playing a dominated hand.

If it gets folded to you and you are in late position, then it would be fine to raise with them. For example, you could have KJo in the CO and the action gets to you, you definitely want to raise in this spot in an attempt to steal the blinds, however if a tight player 3bets you, you need the discipline to get away from the hand.

In saying that, poker is situational, and there may be times where you want to call with a hand like KTs in the blinds when you know the player on the button is raising a wide range of hands. However, the most common scenario is when someone in early position open raises and your decision is whether or not to call with a marginal hand in middle or late position.

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Firstly, it’s important to understand exactly what continuation betting is exactly. A continuation bet (cbet for short) refers to when you make a bet on the flop after you were the preflop raiser. You show strength before the flop by making a raise and continue to show strength on the flop by continuing to bet.

There are two reasons for continuation betting, you can either do it for value or as a bluff. If you play a TAG game and raise a tight range of hands, because you raise such a narrow range you will usually have a strong hand on the flop. When you think you have the best hand you want to continuation bet for value to get your opponents to invest more chips into the pot with a weaker hand.

You should never consider slow playing your hand when you make a strong hand which is vulnerable to being outdrawed. However, you can not always expect to make a hand and you will be faced with the decision of whether or not to continuation bet. The main consideration when making a continuation bet is that you will very often miss the flop when you were open raising with a good top pair hand like AJ, AQ, AK. In fact, you will only hit the flop with these hands only about 1/3 of the time, so the chances are that you won’t make a hand.

Whenever you raise preflop, you are telling your opponents that you have a good hand by being the preflop aggressor and taking initiative in the hand, so you must continue to tell the same story even when you miss the flop. A successful continuation betting strategy will take into account the number of opponents still involved in the hand (the players who called your raise preflop), position, and the board texture.

The ideal scenario for successfully continuation betting as a bluff is when there is only 1 other caller before the flop and it’s a dry flop. For example, let’s say you open raised with the hand Ks Js in early position and a straight forward player who you know plays fit or fold poker calls on the button and you see a flop.

The flop comes Qh 3d 6s. Even though you have missed the flop it would be a great flop to continuation bet because the board is very unlikely to have hit the opponent’s range of hands and its a dry flop with one high card and two low cards. The other player could have a Ax hand but if they missed the flop then it’s impossible to continue with the hand, and so by betting the flop you get a better hand to fold.

The worst flops to be continuation betting is when you are involved in a hand with 2+ callers, so it’s a big multi-way pot, and it’s a wet flop. A wet board texture is one which is very coordinated and draw heavy. These are bad flops to cbet as a bluff because it’s likely to have hit your opponent’s range of hands, even if it missed they are probably on some kind of draw and will call.

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First of all, it’s important to understand what I mean by the squeeze play. The squeeze raise is simply another name for 3betting in certain situations, when there has been a raise, a flat call, and then a re-raise, which is the squeeze. Generally, the most common scenario is when the BTN open raises, SB calls, and then the BB has an opportunity to 3bet.

It is usually a really profitable play when you can expect the initial raise to fold to your 3bet. However, just because you find yourself in these situations doesn’t mean you should be relentlessly 3betting without thinking about why you are doing it.

Whenever you are considering the squeeze play in cash games you need to make sure that certain conditions are met. You want to make sure that the player who open raises is doing so with a wide range of hands. It can be a really profitable play to use the squeeze play against BTN and CO open raises because you know most players are opening up their game in late position.

While it would be good to squeeze with a decent hand which has some showdown value, you are essentially doing it as a bluff and can expect to win the dead money preflop, so it really doesn’t matter what cards you are doing it with, although it can be good to have some blockers like a A or K because you can be more confident the raiser doesn’t have a premium hand.

It’s important not to assume that raisers in late position are opening up their game in late position. Get a feel for their game and how they play. Even if you can be confident they are raising more hands in late position, you also want to be confident that they will fold to 3bets with a high frequency.

If your opponents are playing back at squeeze raises a lot and generally not giving your 3bets any respect, then you need to make adjustments and stop relentlessly 3betting. This is why it’s important to consider your table image. If you are seen to be an aggressive player who is bullying your opponents, then you can be sure they will play back at you. The optimal squeeze play strategy is when the player who open raises views you as a tight player and will in all likelihood fold to your 3bet and only continue with a premium hand.

Have you noticed that I haven’t mentioned anything about the player who has called the raise preflop? The reason for this is because you know this player is more then likely calling the raise with a weak range, so they will fold to the 3bet. If they had a premium hand, then 99% of the time they are not looking to trap with a big hand and would 3bet themselves, so the main consideration when determining if you will get a fold when doing the squeeze play is the original raiser.

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Taking the time to learn some basic no-limit holdem strategies will give you a serious edge. Despite what you may have read, it’s not necessary to make fancy plays to beat the low limit games. If you just jump in and ignore the basics, you’ll pick up bad habits and hinder your progress as a player. When you start to learn the basic strategies for texas holdem, remember that there are no absolutes; everything is relative to the situation you’re in.

In poker, every situation is different and in some cases you will be shoving QQ preflop, while in other spots it may be a fold vs a tight nitty player.

You also need to consider that no-limit hold’em strategy at low stakes is different from higher limit strategy. The first thing you should learn is which starting hands to play. In texas holdem, the easiest way to lose is to play too many hands. Here are some common hands and suggestions on how to play them.

Drawing Hands

A draw hand needs one more card to be become a winning hand. For example, a flush draw needs one more card of that suit to be a flush, and a straight draw is missing one consecutive card to become a straight. If you have a draw hand, it can seem tempting to play, but keep in mind that the chances are usually pretty low that you will get the card you need. These hands are only worth playing if there are several opponents and the pot is worth the risk.

Good Top Pair Hands

Big pairs consist of top pairs or over pairs. For example, a big pair would be if you had AQ and the flop was AK9. Or you might have KK and the flop is 487. With big pairs, you need to try and get rid of as much competition as you can by raising. If you have the best hand, others are probably trying to hit the draw, and you need to make them pay to keep playing, or get them to fold. Big pairs pay off the most when there are less opponents, so raise them out of the game!

Monster Hands

Making monster hands is the perfect scenario in Texas Holdem, but also rare, so when you get one, play it well and make sure to extract the maximum amount of chips! A monster hand is better than top pair; it means you have the best possible hand, two pair or better, sometimes called the “nuts.” If it’s not the nuts it’s very close to having the nuts. Once you have a monster hand like the nut flush or a full house, it will be very difficult for your cards to be beaten, but you don’t want to advertise that fact. Your goal with a monster hand is to extract as many chips into the pot as you can without giving your hand away. One way to do this is to wait until the latter betting rounds to raise, as the bet size will have doubled.

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There are two bluffing strategies, bluffing and semi-bluffing. Bluffing is when you make a bet or raise even though you have a poor hand. The main reason for bluffing is to get the other players to fold right away, thereby giving you the pot. If they call you, you will lose the hand. If they fold, you won’t have to reveal your cards, so they won’t actually know if it was a bluff.

Successful bluffing in Texas Holdem means that pure skill has gotten you the pot. On the other hand, semi-bluffing is when you are partially bluffing, but your hand still has some potential. Whenever you are semi-bluffing you still have a decent amount of equity to win the hand, so you could still win if you are called because your hand might still improve.

Stealing a pot when you have no hand can be very satisfying, perhaps more so than winning it with a monster hand. However, straight out bluffing when you have no way to make a hand is very difficult to pull off and not the smartest thing to do, it’s always a good idea to have some way to win the hand.

Semi-bluffing is a great way for begginers to practice being aggressive. If you are not integrating semi-bluffing into your game you would have a very weak tight game and never get paid off.

Keep in mind that when you are bluffing, other players will do everything they can to spot your anxiety in live poker games, making it easier to execute successfully in online poker, but this doesn’t mean you should try to be always bluffing when playing online poker.

How often should you try bluffing? Well, it largely depends on what hold’em game you are playing, and the playing style of your opponents. Here is a mini-guide for limit and no-limit holdem games.

Bluffing isn’t usually successful in limit holdem games. It’s hard to bluff someone out of a pot when all they have to do is call one more bet at that pre-determined limit. This is especially true if you aren’t playing with experienced players; bad players call a lot of bluffs because they just can’t resist seeing those cards. As a general rule, don’t count on bluffing too much in limit holdem.

Bluffing is much more powerful weapon in no limit holdem games, although it takes skill to pull it off successfully. Learning how to bluff just takes practice and comes with experience, so go ahead and give it a try if the situation seems prime. Keep in mind that you won’t be able to bluff a player that has a good hand, such as big pairs like AA or the top pair after the flop. Another tip is that it’s easier to bluff a player that hasn’t risked much in the pot yet. If you are going to bluff, you have to make it powerful enough to get the other person to fold. You have to make it cost them big time to call you; if you bluff with a small bet, chances are they will call you.

A good time to bluff is when you know what the other play has, and you know what he thinks you have. Make him think you’ve caught the straight by betting big. Strangely enough, bluffing works the best with good poker players because they respect your bets if you have a tight image. Inexperienced players tend to call bluffs frequently because they just can’t find the fold button and are more willing to gamble.

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