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No Limit Texas Holdem
No-Limit Texas Hold'em - the Cadillac of poker. It's hard to believe that the movie Rounders came out 10 years ago now. But no matter what poker players today think of the movie, there's little doubt that it had a huge influence on the poker environment in the United States, and specifically on no-limit Texas hold'em and the World Series of Poker.
At that time, hold'em was not a very well known variant of poker and the World Series had 350 entrants to the main event. In the coming years those numbers would rise significantly. In 2003, an unknown amateur player named Chris Moneymaker turned a $39 satellite win at PokerStars into a World Series of Poker Championship and $2.5 million in prize money. The following year the number of entrants in the WSOP more than tripled. Poker hasn't been the same since.
Now, even the best players in the world play online and most new players are looking to learn no-limit hold'em as their game of choice.
The biggest difference between most types of poker and no-limit hold'em is the unlimited betting limit. You can wager as many chips as you have in front of you on any given hand. This no-limit structure creates a dynamic where aggression can be the key to being successful. Bluffs are part of the game and stealing and re-stealing can bloat pots and put people on tilt.
However, the difference between the over-aggressive fish and the sharks is knowing when and how to bluff and how to squeeze the maximum value out of each hand. That's what some of our strategy articles deal with, but those are a little more advanced. Others are going to deal with the basics, starting hands, betting patterns and the like. It's important that beginners read as much as possible about the different strategies and develop their own game to best fit their own style of play.
Once you've learned the basics and your ready to play, you have to decide what form of no-limit hold'em you want to play. The first consideration is whether you want to play tournaments or ring games. Tournament players may play either sit-n-go tournaments (sng's) or multi-table tournaments (mtt's). Both of these types of tournaments are similar and will share a lot of the same strategies, but multi-table tournaments are generally going to be much larger and have potential for a large payout. Don't be blinded by the potential, though. MTT's are very difficult to win and the variance involved can be devastating if you are not properly bankrolled.
Ring game, or cash game, players have a few choices as well. There is full-ring, which is generally 8 to 10 player tables, short-handed 6-max tables, and heads-up games as well. All of these have quite different strategies involved and they are all much different than tournament strategy. Each variant of cash poker has different amounts of variance involved too. Therefore be sure to practice good bankroll management to avoid risking too much at a time and going broke.
Speaking of bankroll management, it's probably one of the biggest mistakes new players make. It's also one of the easiest to fix. So be sure to check out our articles on bankroll management as well as the rest of our strategy articles, and if you have questions be sure to ask them in the forums.
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