7 Easy Steps to No-Limit Hold’em Success — Step 1: Play Tight

Awesome – Any chance of you posting the other other 6 steps before my Vegas trip next weekend?

Ed,

Against weak-tight opposition who fold too much on the flop, would we be raising a lot of trash-looking hands in late position hoping to pick up the pot on the flop? We rarely see a showdown against these players, so our actual hand value doesn’t seem to matter so much provided we avoid playing big pots against them? Also, if I read NLHTP correctly, we should be raising more preflop to make their flop folds larger errors?

It depends.

When playing nl live I hear this all the time: oh he joins the pot im out or he always folds or when in a pot he must have it. But that doesnt matter the rest will pay me off anyways. I am looking forward to the rest because I am trying to learn abit of NL (am a medium stakes LHE 6max player)

In a way, rules like this remind me of this past week’s episode of The Office, where they’re doing safety training. The warehouse workers say “No one without proper training should use this dangerous machine – EVER!” while Michael tries to squirm around and think of situations and qualifications to the rule.

Of course, the point was not that there /weren’t/ valid exceptions to the rules, but that the person themself was both unqualified to make such judgements, and wholly unaware of their own inability in such a regard.

Great, but what are the not trash and sometimes trash hands at a 6 max table. I think starting hand selection at a short table is even more critical.

what are the other 6 titled

Thank you, Ed. I am looking forward to reading the other six steps. This first step alone is worth about as much as some on entire books written on LHE. This series of articles might be important enough to warrant you creating a separate link for them on your main page. Keep up the good work!

Ed,

I tend to raise many of the notable “It’s Really Trash, I Promise” hands on the button (and in the SB) when everyone has folded to me. I can’t see how you can pass on A9o (or A7o, etc) in these spots, even if you’re a beginner. Even if you can get in trouble with these hands if you flop an A and your opponent happened to call your preflop raise with AJ, the same would be true if you had A9s, which (I’m assuming) you would advocate raising on the button.

Thanks for this series of articles, Ed. I’ve been looking to bring a friend of mine up to speed on playing NLHE, but I wanted to start with a simple set of rules that she could expand on later. This seems to be just the ticket.

Deep stack no limit is a game of pocket pairs and suited connectors. Wired sevens is a better no limit hand than A-Q. Why? It builds a set. A-Q builds only top pair. LIMIT hold em is a game of top pair top kicker. You want to have A-Q and flop come Q, 7, 9 rainbow. In No limit you want to be in AGAINST top pair top kicker with your set of sevens. Thus, the saying goes, “In limit you make your money with top pair top kicker, but in no limit you make your money agaist top pair top kicker.” Also, A-Q is a trouble hand because it is often dominated AND it is hard to win a big pot with it.

Andy, Ed is not talking about deep stack no limit in this article.

Suited King-rag falls into the Trash category. They can make the nuts. When they make the 2nd nut flush, they beat 21 of 28 possible flush hands out, assuming 3 of the suit are on the board. The problem is they cannot bet with confidence if they meet resistance, and they can be counterfeited when the fourth suit hits. Overall, you don’t lose much by dumping them in a game with 100xBB stacks.

Great series Ed in such a simple format. This will improve anyones game.

Great series, Ed.

Thanks for making it available.

If I may say so, I definitely think you have the outline of a book here. Especially if you were to add maybe a dozen example hands for each Step – some showing us how people get it wrong, some showing us how to do it right.

Why not link to this series from your main page?

Excellent website.
Thanks again.

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Ed and gang. Having rules is dumb. you cant worry to much about what a guy has before the flop. if he raises he could have so many diffent hands. as long as you dont over commit your self to a pot you can always get away from a iffy hand. If i think maybe im behind in a hand before flop i call as long its not too much and i see the flop. then i make my judgement from their. I disagree with not loosening up when it gets lesser than 9 people in a game. A10 becomes more powerful in a 5 to 4 handed game then it does a 9

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Allen Omepo, do you live anywhere near me? I play in a home game, and we’d love to have you join us.

Hello, I’m a regular visitor to your site so i finally decided its time to sign your guestbook, so here i sign !