How to think

Everything below is a way of answering one question: how often does my hand win, and is that more often than the price I am being asked to pay? Poker is not about the hand you have. It is about the size of the bet relative to how often that hand is good.

Which is why folding is a skill. Most hands you are dealt are not worth playing, and most hands you play do not improve. The players who lose slowly are the ones who cannot leave.

The dealer button decides the order of play, and it moves one seat each hand. If you act late in the round, you have watched everyone else first: their checks and bets tell you something before you have to commit anything. If you act first, you are guessing.

The practical consequence is simple — play more hands when you are late to act, and fewer when you are early. The same two cards can be an easy raise on the button and an easy fold under the gun.

• A♠

  A♦
  Raise from anywhereBig pairs and big cards: aces down to tens, ace-king, ace-queen. Strong enough that you want money in the pot before anybody has seen a flop.
• J♥

  10♥
  Usually worth playingMiddling pairs, suited aces, and connected suited cards like J-10. They rarely win unimproved, but when they do hit they make straights and flushes that get paid.
• 7♠

  6♠
  Only when it is cheapSmall pairs and small suited connectors. Fine to see a flop with if nobody has raised, and easy to let go when they miss — which is most of the time.
• 9♣

  4♦
  Throw it awayUnconnected, unsuited, and not high. There is no flop that makes this hand comfortable, and playing it out of curiosity is where most chips quietly go.

Suited matters less than people think — it adds a few percent, not a category. Connected matters more. And a pair is a made hand from the start, which is why even a small one has value.

When somebody bets, you are being offered a price. Pot odds compare that price to what you stand to win, and give you the win rate you need for calling to be worth it:

Notice what this means: a small bet needs very little to justify calling, and a huge bet needs a lot. The size of a bet is information about the price, not only about strength.

An out is a card that would make your hand. Count them, then use the rule of two and four:

• One card to come — multiply your outs by 2 for a rough percentage.
• Two cards to come — multiply by 4.

Common counts worth remembering: a flush draw is 9 outs, an open-ended straight draw is 8, and hitting a pair into three of a kind is 2.

The strongest bet in the game sits between the two. A semi-bluff is a bet with a hand that is probably behind now but has outs to become the best — a flush draw, say. You can win immediately if they fold, and you still have a way to win if they do not. Two ways to win is why it beats bluffing with nothing.

Bluff less against several opponents. Getting one player to fold is a plan; getting four to fold is a wish.

Before the flop they score their two cards on a standard opening chart and play tighter when more players are still to act behind them — the position rule above, applied mechanically.

After the flop they stop guessing. They deal out the rest of the hand a few thousand times at random and count how often they win, which gives a real number for their chance of winning. Then they compare it against the pot odds — exactly the calculation above — and bet, call or fold on the answer.

Their weakness, if you want it: those simulations give you a completely random hand rather than the hands someone would actually bet with. That makes them a little too optimistic when facing a large bet — so their big folds come slightly less often than they should.