Poker Strategies
After receiving pocket cards, you are immediately faced with a choice: play your cards and either raise or call the blinds, or fold.
After receiving pocket cards, you are immediately faced with a choice: play your cards and either raise or call the blinds, or fold.
Compare it with a table stakes game in which the average bet is the same $2 or $4, but in which every player has $100 or $200 in front of him and can later bet the $100 or $200 at any betting interval. Suppose in such a game you toss your $2 or $4 into the pot hoping to better your pair. With $40 already in the pot, you are getting excellent odds, but you are risking a situation in which you may better the pair and then be confronted with a $200 bet. Yet, if you better your pair, nobody is likely to call a $200 bet unless he believes he can beat your hand. Therefore your potential risk is much greater than in the $2 or $4 limit game.
In any form of Online Hold'em Poker it usually pays to play only when your hand, even without improvement, has a chance to win the pot, and when you believe your chance of improvement is as good as all other players'. For example, you have a pair of aces and another player has kings showing. If neither of you improves, you win. You have as good a chance to improve as your opponent has, and if you both improve equally, you'll still win.