Texas Holdem Poker - Schooling

Schooling is a popular belittling term used to describe what loose players do when they want to defend themselves in a Texas Holdem poker game. Other popular names of this are Sheep flock and fish school. If the pot is fairly small on the turn in Texas Holdem poker, and the player with the best hand bets, it would be a significant mistake to call if you only have a gutshot draw. But in Texas Holdem poker it can happen that several other people call too, each holding a different gutshot draw. So, because of these other bad players, now the pot has grown. In this case even the gutshot draws are getting better pot odds on their calls. What happens is that these bad calls “school” together and they actually become not-so-bad calls.

Texas Holdem Poker - Loose Ends

Many Texas Holdem players, especially the weaker ones, have what is called the starting hand fetish. This means that they only fix on the starting hand as a central aspect of their Texas Holdem poker games. This leads to a corresponding lack of ability to lose well. What happens is that players look at AK or QQ in Texas Holdem poker and think what a great hand this is, and start counting the money they will be raking in. However, Texas Holdem poker is not that easy. Let’s take the example of a confrontation of AsKc versus QhJh suited - this is about a 60 to 40 confrontation if both hands go to the showdown. Of course, a three to two advantage is solidly profitable in Texas Holdem poker, but it should not surprise anyone when the 40 percent wins a hand. Still, it is even not this simple. You always have to remember that there is betting in Texas Holdem poker and how these hands are played can very significantly alter how much money changes hands. What may occur is that an excellent player in position with the QJ will have a better expectation than a weak player holding the AK - the weaker player might chase or pay off far too liberally and in the same time the excellent player might be able to get away from their hands before the bigger betting rounds.

Texas Holdem Poker - No Limit Tournaments

You need to have played well and gotten extremely lucky, to win a No Limit Holdem event with over 2500 players, simply because this is the nature of Texas Holdem poker. Another reason for this is because that is how a lot of players are learning how to play the game - “I go all-in”. Race after race, coin flip after coin flip - even if you are an outstanding Texas Holdem poker player, and regularly get significant edges over your opponents (for instance every hand you play is a 2-1 favorite), to continually not lose requires huge loads of luck. You can not avoid this if your opponents force you to commit all your chips or fold - folding 2 to 1 edges is not the road to win a Texas Holdem poker tournament.