Online No-Limit Texas Hold’em Poker For Beginners

Online No-Limit Texas Hold’em Poker For Beginners

If you are reading this, I am guessing you’ve seen the WSOP on ESPN and have said to yourself, “That looks like fun” and now are ready to try your hand at a bit of Poker. This is a very common thought as, more and more, Poker has made it into our lives.

If Hollywood had held off, and released the movie Rounders, starring Matt Damon and Ed Norton today; it would be a blockbuster. Poker has taken over sports television that used to be reserved for lesser-known sports like skeet, and inline hockey. Poker isn’t just for the bad time slots anymore. The WSOP is shown in prime time on ESPN. This is time ESPN used to use for Major League Baseball.

The question that I have heard asked is, “Why is poker so popular now?” It is true. The WSOP has been held for 30+ years. ESPN has been around for 25 years, yet, all of a sudden, there is poker on all the time.

The reason is the Internet. Folks no longer have to travel to a card club, or a casino, or Vegas or wherever to get a game of poker. Also, they don’t have to schedule their poker play around their friends’ schedules. With the Internet, anyone with a few bucks can head to an online poker room and play with complete strangers any time of the day or night. At PartyPoker.com, it is rare to see the number of people on the site less than 15,000 at any given time. And that is just one site.

Another reason poker is so popular now is the “hole card camera” that they use on TV. The camera is used to see what cards the “best” players in the world are holding, and how they play them. This is intriguing, and educational. You can learn the game by watching. Television gives us that education.

A third reason for Poker’s explosion in popularity is the game itself. No-limit Texas Hold’em is what is advertised and played on TV in the WSOP and the WPT. This is THE game. This game is a different animal altogether. It is not 5-card or 7-card stud. It is definitely not Omaha.

Everyone only gets two cards. Then they all use the 5 community cards to see who has the best hand. With everyone holding so few cards in secret, there is a very FINITE amount of hands that can be made with the community cards. Hands that are any good that is. More importantly, possible hands that can beat your hand.

The game itself is genius. It is simple. It is easy enough to know if you have the best hand possible. It is also a game that can be played with a lot of skill, and a bit of luck.

The final reason for poker’s current popularity is that the general masses finally see the game as a skill game. A sport. It isn’t exactly gambling. Most folks look at playing cards, playing poker, as gambling. Or they used to. With all the media attention devoted to No-Limit Texas Hold’em, the general public is finally figuring out that this is a game of skill, not luck. If you get better at your skills, you will be a better player. You can work to hone your skills, to “think correctly” throughout a game.

I hate to mention Rounders again, but quoting Matt Damon, “Why does this still seem like gambling to you? I mean, why do you think the same five guys make it to the final table of the World Series of Poker EVERY SINGLE YEAR? What, are they the luckiest guys in Las Vegas? It’s a skill game, Jo.” While that isn’t exactly true anymore, as the number of folks entering that tournament has more than tripled in the last year, increasing the odds of getting unlucky, it still reinforces the point about Hold’em being a skill game.

Next in importance is the stage that the media shows us. It only shows us tournaments. We all know that “gambling” is “morally” wrong. Or you should know. That is, if you ever went to church, you heathen. (smirk) Television doesn’t show us the bad side of the gambling lifestyle. The guy that goes down to the card club with a cap of $100, loses a lot, hits the cash machine twice, and leaves down $400. This is the morally wrong side to poker, and gambling in general.

What the media shows us now is tournament poker. Specifically Hold’em. There is a set buy-in. The chips aren’t real money, they are just chips. If you lose all your chips, you are out. Game over. If you win all the chips, you are the winner and collect the top prize. There is no going to the cash machine and trying to “win it back”. The game that is presented on television is in a buy-in format, and when you are out, you are out.

The book will progress as follows:

• Define the differences between No-Limit and Limit Hold’em for the beginning player
• Getting started with your online experience
• Commonly used Poker Definitions
• How to play with the odds in your favor.
• Specific hands, and how to play them.
• Odds Chart, and a couple of Starting Hands Charts.
• Playing in Position
• Bluffing
• Bad Beats
• End Game

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