The Flop

The Flop is the defining moment in a poker hand. Great starting hands become second best. Marginal starting hands become monster hands.

Before commiting your chips to the pot, you must make a realistic judgement on the strength of your hand. Do you need to play it quickly? Should you slowplay your hand? Are there 2 or 3 suited cards in the flop? Is someone on a flush draw?

In general, a flop with high cards, especially suited, can be a problem for your hand. Unless, of course, you have some of those high cards. A pair on the board can mean that someone has Trips (3 of a kind) or a Full House. These are all warning flags for your hand.

You also need to consider how many oponents are in the hand with you. The more players in a pot, the greater the chance that you will be beaten. This being the case, you should only be in 3 or 4 way pots with very strong hands. The only exception would be if there is a great deal of money in the pot. In that case, you might be getting sufficient pot odds to call a bet.

Especially in a tournament, you will often be faced with situations where one or more players are all in before the flop. When more that one person is all in before the flop, you might be right to fold a pair of Aces. Especially at the final table. Sometimes the difference between 10th and 11th place can be a lot of money. This will affect your play.

Texas Hold Em sounds very simple, however, it takes a lot of time at the table to pick up the nuances of the game. This site was created to help the average player improve their game. We'll help you with which starting hands to play, and how to bet. We'll show you how position impacts your starting hand selection, how to calculate pot odds, and wheter to call, raise, or fold. We'll help you determine your poker strategy. One that you will use to make more money. We'll even identify trap hands, which look good, but usually cost you big money. So... shuffle up and deal!