Texas Holdem Poker

Being in early position in Texas Holdem Poker is not necessarily a bad thing when you only have one or two players in the hand before you.  Ideally, the move we are going to talk about today is an isolation move, but you can pull this off with two players if you are watching the style of play and know that the other pre flop and flop caller has missed their hand. Whether you are playing in casino or online poker sites the strategy apply for both.

The first thing we want to address here is if it is three handed.  This is the more dangerous of the two, but watching will tell you what to do here.  Assume that you are in the BB and you have one limper behind you and late position raises.  Both you and the limper make the call to see the flop.  The flop hits and you either hit the middle pair or are holding a middle pair in your hand.  You check and the limper checks and the raiser makes a continuation bet that is called.

If you have a crafty player before the raiser, they may be looking to make a move and watching how they reacted in similar positions will help you with the size of their bet.  If you have seen them put in a turn bet to steal a pot, your bet is going to have to be enough to chase them off of their hand.  If they usually fold with a turn bet, you can get away with a value bet here to get them out and go up against the initial raiser.

When you have isolation, your move here is pretty straight forward.  You want them to make their continuation bet and then you are looking for something harmless to fall on the turn.  If that card hits, you immediately fire on the turn to give the raiser something to think about.  Unless they are sitting on a big hand, they will more than likely fold here.  If the board has put a draw out there, they may just call and go fishing for the river card to improve them.

This move is going to pick you up a lot of pots as when the stakes get a little higher, players tend to get out versus risking losing a chunk of their stack. The successes that you have with this move should more than make up for those times that you get caught by an actual hand.  If you are successful, this will eventually pay off in a big way when you are lucky enough to have a monster hand and the raiser misreads you as doing the same play and that is what this game is all about.