Oct 20, 2010 How do hands in Texas Holdem differ from the hands in normal poker? The hands in Texas Holdem are very similar to the hands of regular poker.
When’s the last time you heard something about luck at the
Texas holdem table?
The odds are the last time you played you heard someone talk
about luck. If you’re honest you probably either talked about
luck or at least thought about it the last time you played.
Here’s a list of common things about luck heard around the
Texas holdem table:
- That sure was a lucky break.
- Talk about bad luck. She hit a four outer on the river to beat me.
- I just need to hit a lucky streak to get back to even.
- I’m the unluckiest poker player in the world.
- It’s lucky you hit your flush because I had the straight.
If you believe luck has anything to do with the results at
the Texas holdem table it’s time you learned the truth.
The truth is luck has nothing to do with anything that
happens at the Texas holdem table.
It doesn’t matter what you think or what you’ve heard or
seen, everything that happens is a matter of mathematical
probabilities and short term variance. Once you finish this page
you’ll realize this is true and you’ll learn how to use this
information against your opponents.
The best thing about learning the truth about luck and poker
is it instantly makes you a better player. When you understand
why luck has nothing to do with your results and how short term
variance works you’ll start looking at everything that happens
while you’re playing in a different way.
Once you learn about Texas holdem luck and variance you can
see how they’re directly related to odds, pot odds, and expected
value. If you haven’t read the pages covering those topics in
this section yet make sure to check them out after reading this
page.
How Short Term Variance Works
The reason luck doesn’t have anything to do with Texas holdem
is because you’re using a deck of playing cards within a strict
framework of rules. The deck of cards has a set number of cards,
52, and only a certain number of outcomes are possible in any
situation.
Before the river is dealt you have two pair and your opponent
has a gut shot straight draw. When your opponent gets one of the
four cards she needs to complete her straight it seems like good
luck for her and bad luck for you.
Let’s look at every possible outcome for this hand to see if
luck has anything to do with it.
The board has four cards, your opponent has two cards, and
you have two cards, for a total of eight known cards. This
leaves a total of 44 unseen cards. Four of the cards complete a
straight for your opponent and 40 of them don’t. So every 44
times you’re in this situation you’ll win 40 and lose four.
While the percentages or odds are in your favor, the more
times you’re in this situation the closer the results will come
to the correct percentages.
For example, if you’re in this situation 1,000 times you’ll
win roughly 909 times and lose roughly 91 times.
The important number to consider is you have to lose roughly
one out of every 11 times you’re in this situation. It has
nothing to do with luck and everything to do with simple
mathematics.
You should actually rejoice when your opponent draws out on
you in this situation because the average must come back to
normal eventually and you’ve just put one on the negative side.
This means in the long run you’re one closer to the dominating
numbers this situation requires.
Don’t make the mistake of thinking you’ll automatically win
the next 10 times if you just lost a hand in this situation.
While over the long term the averages always work out, the short
term isn’t guaranteed. You’re not even guaranteed to win the
next identical situation.
It’s possible to lose two, three, or even more hands in a row
in this situation, even as a huge favorite. It’s not likely to
happen, but it can.
over and over, the numbers take care of themselves and force
profit to you.
This outcome shows why what really happens is normal and if a
result presents itself that isn’t favored to happen it’s simply
short term variance.
In this example we assumed you knew the values of your hole
cards as well as your opponents because of the way we set up the
hand. In most hands you won’t know the exact value of your
opponent’s cards but often you can generate a good guess. This
doesn’t change the lesson, simply the number of seen and unseen
cards.
Here are a couple more examples. The example we just covered
showed a hand where you were a huge favorite. Many players make
the mistake of thinking they’re a bigger favorite than they
actually are in some hands. The next example covers one of these
situations.
If you have a made hand after the turn and your opponent has
four to a flush, you’re a favorite to win the hand. But do you
know how many times you’ll win and lose on average? How big of a
favorite do you think you are?
You know the value of eight cards, leaving 44 unseen cards.
The deck has nine cards that complete your opponent’s flush, so
35 cards make you the winner. Your opponent will hit their flush
over 20% of the time. This means slightly over one out of every
five times you’re in this situation you lose.
This still makes you a big favorite, but you aren’t so big of
a favorite that you should expect to win on any single hand.
What if your opponent has an open end straight draw and a
flush draw? This means she has 15 outs out of 44 unseen cards.
This means she’ll win roughly 34% of the time, or 34 out of
every 100 times you play the situation.
value, luck doesn’t come into play.
If you have a suited ace and king and your opponent has a
pair of fives, the pair of fives will win just under 52% of the
time heads up and the suited ace king will win 48% of the time.
You’ll actually tie a very small percentage of the time, which
is covered in the slightly fewer than 52% of the time the pocket
fives win. For ease of calculation we’re using 52% and 48%.
When you play this situation 100 times the pocket fives hand
wins 52 times and the suite ace king wins 48 times. This is
close to a coin flip so you shouldn’t be surprised at either
outcome, no matter which side of the hand you’re on.
How Understanding Variance Helps with Tilt
It’s easy to get upset when an opponent does something stupid
but wins anyway or when you trick your opponent and have a
dominant hand only to get drawn out on. But now that you
understand it doesn’t have anything to do with luck you can use
this information to avoid tilt.
When you go on tilt you start making plays based on your
emotions, usually anger, instead of on sound playing decisions.
Any time you make a play at the Texas holdem table that isn’t
based on the decision that makes the most money in the long run
you’re costing yourself long term profit. Tilt clearly falls
into the category of playing decisions that aren’t based on the
correct decisions for long term profit.
The next time you lose in a situation where you’re
the heavy favorite remember what you learned in the last
section. Simply understanding how the math works can be enough
to help you remain calm and approach the next hand with a level
head and clear thinking.
You can also consider commenting about how lucky your
opponent was to try to get them to buy into how everything is
based on luck. You can learn more about this in the next
section.
Saying the Word Luck at the Table
As long as you never start believing that luck has anything
to do with the results at the Texas holdem table you should
spread the word around as much as possible.
You want as many of your opponents as possible to believe in
luck and keep striving to turn their luck around. If your
opponents believe everything that happens is based on luck
they’ll never learn how to improve their game. This helps you
win more in the long run.
Developing your skills and abilities to become a winning
Texas holdem player has a great deal to do with psychology. When
you fall into the trap of thinking that luck plays a role you
not only cost yourself money by basing your playing decisions on
luck and feelings instead of math, percentages, and odds, you
also run the risk of damaging the psychological way you play and
view the game.
table instead of recognizing short term variance when you see it,
you stop making the correct plays.
You’re making an excuse for poor play instead of taking
responsibility for your mistakes and striving to correct them
and increase your profits.
If you can help other players fall into the believing in luck
trap you can help them damage their poker psychology. This in
turn helps you in the long run.
Don’t be afraid to tell everyone at the table how lucky you
are when you win a hand or get a nice starting hand. Everyone
gets dealt a pair of pocket aces or kings the same percentage of
times in the long run, but it can seem lucky when you get them.
Some players can get irritated if you comment on how lucky
they are on a hand, so you have to decide if you want to run the
risk of irritating your opponents when they win a hand. Some
players don’t have a problem being confrontational, but if you
do you might want to avoid starting the luck conversation. But
if one of your opponents mentions it feel free to jump in.
Pros Do It Too
You don’t even have to be an amateur poker player to fall
into the luck trap. Recently a televised poker game was on with
Mike Matusow. He was in a hand as a favorite and was considering
making an offer to run the hand twice but didn’t.
He ended up losing the hand and started whining about how no
one knew how bad he ran at poker. This is another way of saying
he always has bad luck. And he’s been a pro long enough to know
better.
If you’re not familiar with running a hand twice, in big cash
games sometimes the players agree to run a situation twice. If
they get all in pre flop with an ace and a king against a pair
of sevens they could run it twice, dealing the flop, turn, and
river and then dealing it again.
It’s a way to average out situations when playing for high
stakes. The only place you generally see it is at the highest
level tables.
Summary
Now that you know the difference between luck and short term
variance at the Texas holdem poker tables you can start using
what you’ve learned. The next time you’re on the short end of
the variance stick quietly rejoice because you’ve got one of the
losing draws out of the way. It always brings you one step
closer to winning in the long run.
Now you never need to worry about going on tilt again. Since
there’s no such thing as a bad beat you can stop getting upset
at the poker table. Just keep getting your money in when you’re
the favorite and let the math take care of everything else.
Poker Vs Texas Holdem
Shocking might be the correct word for how many people we’ve talked to who believe all forms of poker are the same. Specifically, we’ve asked a lot of people whether they think there are many differences between cash games and tournaments. The overwhelming response is that the only real difference is that you’re able to cash out of cash games when you want and you’re stuck in tournaments until the end.
While this is certainly correct, there are a lot more differences between the two that you need to be aware of. If you’re currently playing cash games and tournaments exactly the same and strategically treating them the same, you’re setting yourself up for failure. In this guide, we’re going to walk you through the important differences between cash games and tournament poker. We’ll also tell you why it’s important that you know and understand the differences and how you can apply that knowledge to help increase your poker success and profits.
Why This Is Important
What’s the difference between an alligator and a crocodile? The correct answer is, “Who really cares?” They’re both capable of eating you for breakfast. The point of that statement is to draw attention to the fact that with poker training you should always be asking yourself why it’s important to learn things before you invest the time to learn them. This way, you can effectively budget your time to have the biggest and most positive impact on your game.
The main reason being aware of the differences between cash games and tournaments is important has to do with strategy. There are strategic implications that need to be accounted for when you transition from one play format to the other. If you’re attempting to apply a one size fits all approach, you’re going to be making mistakes.
In addition, the different formats lend themselves better to different play styles as well as different lifestyles. If you’re trying to play the format that doesn’t fit you best, you’re effectively a 2-year-old trying to put the square peg into the round hole. In case you’ve never seen a child or been a child, that square peg will never go into that round hole no matter how strong or creative you are. Trust us, we tried many years ago.
There are less impactful reasons this information is important, but these should be plenty to get you motivated to read on and take what you’re about to learn (or get a refresher on) to heart.
Also, for those curious, you can tell the difference between a crocodile and an alligator based on whether you see them later or you see them in a while.
Escalating Blinds and Changing Conditions
The first and probably most obvious difference between the two formats is that in a tournament the blinds change. In a cash game, the blinds will always be the same no matter what. If you’re in a $1/$2 game, the blinds are never going to be anything but $1 for the small blind and $2 for the big blind. In tournaments, though, the blinds will gradually escalate according to a predetermined structure and time schedule.
Strategically speaking, this means a few different things. First, in both formats, you need always to be aware of how many chips you have in relation to the blinds. But, due to the changing levels in a tournament, this becomes that much more important. For example, if you have $200 in a $1/$2 game, you have 100 times the big blind. If two hours later you still have the same $200, you still have 100 times the big blind because the blinds have not changed. Your strategic implications based on stack size will not change.
In a tournament, though, if you have 10,000 chips at 50/100, you have 100 times the big blind. If you have the same 10,000 chips two hours later, but the blinds have gone up to 200/400, you now only have 25 times the big blind. How you choose to operate your stack when you have 25 big blinds is vastly different than how you would with 100 times the big blind (or at least it should be). If you’re not paying attention to how the changes in levels are affecting your stack size, you’re going to be playing improperly and could cost yourself a shot at winning the tournament. You also need to be paying attention to how it’s affecting your opponents’ stack sizes as their strategy will change and the effective stack sizes in hands will also change.
In addition to the changing number of big blinds you have, the different situations you’re in are going to be changing too in a tournament. In a cash game, every hand is exactly the same. There are no changing conditions outside of how other players might be choosing to play. In a tournament, though, you have early stages, end of the day bubbles, the actual bubble, final table bubbles, final table play, shorthanded play, and more. As the tournament progresses and blinds increase and players are eliminated, the circumstances will be changing.
Each of these different circumstances requires you to adjust your play and react to how other players are going to be adjusting their play. For example, if you’re on the money bubble of a tournament, you may be required to make calls or folds that you normally would not, due to the fact that the next person out of the tournament gets no money. You may have to make a looser call because you know someone is trying to be a bully, or you may have to make a tighter fold because you know another player is terrified of bubbling and would only be pushing hard with a huge hand.
There are a million different instances that we could discuss here, but the point is all the same.
Note:You have to be knowledgeable of the changing conditions and willing to adjust accordingly. The player who adapts the best to each different circumstance within a tournament is the player who is most likely going to have the best shot at bringing home the bacon.
As stack sizes change with the blinds, you’ll also see the value and playability of certain hands fluctuate. Hands that favor deep stack play will lose value as the stack sizes get shallower with increasing blinds. Additionally, hands that can suffer or be more difficult to play in deep stacked situations will increase in value as the stacks become shallower. This is an adjustment that you’ll need to learn to make if you have hopes of being successful in tournament poker play.
If you’re looking for specifics on all of these changing situations, they can be found in some of our other sections including our deep stack poker strategy section, short stack poker strategy section, and bubble play sections. Additionally, there are adjustments that can be made that you’ll learn about in some of our other guides. We highly recommend spending some more time working through these sections if you’re looking to improve your game.
The Ability to Leave and Game Select
We mentioned in our intro that this was the most popular answer when we asked people what the differences between poker tournaments and poker cash games were. While they were correct, we fear that a lot of the people who answered did not understand the strategic implications that come with this ability or lack thereof.
In cash games, you are free to play when you want, for as long as you want, and can quit when you want. If you feel like playing one hand and leaving, fine. If you feel like playing for 12 hours straight, fine. If you feel like playing zero hands, also fine. The point is that you have a lot of flexibility in what you are allowed to do. This needs to be taken advantage of.
You need to be willing to take the time to evaluate games and see if they are profitable for you to play in. You should be looking for games that are the most favorable to you and offer you the most potential upside. In our game selection strategy section, we offer a nice analogy that paints this picture very clearly. Imagine that you’re given the opportunity to play basketball for money. If you win your game, you get $100. You also have the choice between playing on one of two different courts. On court one, you’d be playing against Kobe Bryant. On court two, you’d be playing against a short, middle school kid.
Are you just going to pick either one of the courts without thinking about it? Of course you aren’t. You’re going to choose to play against the middle school kid and take the easy money. This is the basis of game selection and something that you get the opportunity to do when you’re playing cash games. If you’re not taking advantage of it, you are a silly, silly person.
With tournaments, you don’t have this luxury. You are forced to sit where they tell you, and you can’t change seats or leave until the tournament is over or on a scheduled break (which you still can’t change seats on). This does not mean that you can’t still game select to a degree. You can look at the tournament field as a whole and assess the difficulty level. If you have options between multiple tournaments on the same day, this can be very helpful to make sure you’re playing the event with the best value. That is, of course, unless you are an ego-snob and will only play the more prestigious of events.
After you make your tournament selection, it all becomes the luck of the draw. You may end up at a great table with a lot of terrible players, you may get stuck at the table of doom filled with sharks, or you may find something somewhere in the middle. Regardless, you need to be prepared to make quick assessments of the other players at your table. If you find that you’re at a very difficult table, you need to figure out the breaking order of tables.
If you’re going to be there for a while, it’s time to lock in and get ready for battle because you’re going to have to find a way to win chips at the challenging table. If you’re going to be breaking very soon, you might be able to hold off on going to war and hope to get moved to a more favorable seat. We’re not saying to run and hide from better players, but there’s no reason to take the hard road to get chips if an easier one exists right around the corner.
Convenience Factors
If you’re someone who isn’t sure which poker format is right for you, you may want to take a look at some of the different conveniences that you may or may not be afforded with each format. As we mentioned, cash games give you the ability to come and go as you please. If you’re someone with a short attention span or who goes on tilt easily, this should be appealing to you. Cash games will allow you to work around those issues (and any similar) allowing you always to be playing your best at the tables.
If you’re someone who has the ability to persevere through long sessions and is able to keep focused when fatigue sets in, you may find a lot of success in tournament poker. While the rest of the field is struggling to keep their eyes open late in the day, you’ll be stepping on the gas and cleaning up the easy chips. It might not be as enjoyable as being able to come and go as you please, but sometimes being profitable in poker is about finding the situations where you have the biggest edge.
Regarding the stress level, you’re going to get different responses from different people on which of the two formats are more taxing on your mind. Some would say the fact that you have actual money in front of you at the cash tables makes it more of a mental grind. Others would say that the constant changing conditions of a poker tournament would make it more taxing on the mind.
In all honesty, everyone is right. It comes down to which fits your style and mindset best. If seeing the real money move back and forth puts you on edge, stick to tournaments. If you like that the game conditions are always somewhat similar, stick to cash games. Remember, as well, some players play both formats and prefer the mix.
The Availability of Action
If you were to walk into a brick-and-mortar casino or log into an online poker site right now, one thing is for sure – you’d have cash games to choose from. You might not see the exact stakes you want or have a ton of options, but you’re most certainly going to see some form of cash game action. In higher trafficked casinos and online poker rooms, you’ll have a ton of options to choose from at pretty much any point of any day.
Tournaments, on the other hand, must be scheduled. They are not 24/7, and only happen when someone takes the time to organize one and put it on the schedule. Even then, bigger tournaments don’t always come around that often, even if you live in a place like Las Vegas or Atlantic City. Poker tours have helped to create some big prize pools throughout the year, but you’re forced to travel if you want continual action, or wait until the series hits your town.
Online poker has made this infinitely better, but you’re still required to wait for when the tournaments start. If you want to grind cash games at 3 am, you’re all set to go. If you want to start a poker tournament at 3 am, you may be out of luck, unless you catch some sort of graveyard event or play on a poker site whose main clientele are from another country.
This means that your personal schedule and availability of time to play will have an effect on which format fits best for you. If you’re playing for a living, it’s not really going to matter. You’re going to want to play whatever format you’re the most profitable at. If you’re more of a recreational player or someone in the process of transitioning to playing full-time, time constraints are going to be important.
Note:Poker tournaments take time. In fact, they take a lot of time, and you have no option of cutting that time short unless you feel like setting money on fire. They also only come around at certain times, and if you miss the high-value events, it’s going to have an effect on your bottom line.
If you have limited time to play, you may want to look at starting with cash games. If you still want to play some tournaments, you’ll have to become diligent about scheduling your time. Make sure that when you block time off to play a tournament, that you take care of all of your other obligations so that you can fully focus on the task at hand. Due to the long nature of tournaments, you may have to take care of quite a few things before you play if you want to have an uninterrupted session.
Find the format that fits you and your personal situation and goals best. It’s as simple as that.
The Potential Wins, Losses, and Cold Streaks
Everyone likes talking about the spoils of being a successful poker player. Let’s talk about what you can expect and what you can look forward to when it comes to the two different game formats. Regarding overall profit, neither jumps out as a winner. Each format will have varying stake levels, and the total long-term amounts you can win will vary based on that.
Regarding individual session wins, though, things are greatly different. In a single cash game session, you will have some bigger wins and maybe some bigger losses, but you’re never going to have a massive win. In tournament poker, though, you have the potential for a massive win. It’s not uncommon for a couple hundred dollar buy-in tournament to have a first place price in the five or six-figure marks. You’re never going to win anywhere near that in a cash game session risking the same amount.
For example, if you buy into a $2/$5 cash game with $500, you could have a great session and win several thousand dollars. We’ve seen wins, though rare, as big as $5-10k. Usually, though, it’s going to be more in the hundreds or a few thousand range. On the other side of the coin, we’ve seen poker tournaments with a buy-in of $500 where first place is over $100,000! Yes, you can still have smaller wins, but the potential for big money is going to be there.
For all of you that are already saying, “Why on Earth would I ever play cash games?” here are a few things that you need to realize to put this more into context. First, you are not going to win every poker tournament you play. In fact, you could be the best in the world, and you’re still only going to be winning 1-2% of the tournaments you play (this is an oversimplified number, but a good base for discussion). You’ll also probably only be making money about 20% of the time if you’re a good solid player.
This means that a lot of the sessions you play are going to be complete duds. If you match up with these numbers, four out of five tournaments you play you will be making no money and losing your buy-in. In cash games when you don’t have a winning session, it’s possible that you just break even. You don’t always lose all of your buy-in money.
For this reason, you can go long stretches in poker tournaments without having a win or making any money. This can be taxing, especially if you need money to live off, don’t have the proper bankroll, or aren’t emotionally strong enough to handle the swings. You can have cash game swings as well, but things don’t usually swing as hard as they can for tournament poker players. This is why a lot of tournament players also play cash or sit and gos to supplement their income and their bankroll while hunting for the big score.
One other difference we want to cover is the potential for loss with each format. Theoretically, your potential for loss with both is always infinite. You can always buy back into cash games forever, and you can always play more tournaments. But, your single session loss potential will be different. In cash games, it’s unlimited. In tournaments, it is capped at the size of the buy-in.
Here’s an ExampleIf you buy into a cash game for $200 and lose, you can buy in for another $200…and so on…and so on. If you buy into a tournament for $200 and lose, you’re out, and you can’t lose any more money. Yes, you no longer have the potential to make any money, but you also can’t lose any more.
Strategically speaking, this is going to be more important for people who have self-control issues or like the knowledge that they can’t lose any more than a certain amount. If you struggle with self-control, tournaments will be better for you. You’ll be limited on how much you can lose and will not have to worry about losing your bearing. You will still have to be careful in rebuy and reentry tournaments, but for the most part, you’re going to be more insulated.
If the money swings affect your game, you’re going to struggle in cash games. You might find yourself going on tilt or playing sub-optimally because you’re thinking about the money. If this is you, you may want to look more into tournament poker.
The Wrap Up
As you can see, there are quite a few differences between tournament poker and cash game poker. While some of these differences will only affect preferential choices, some of them have major strategic impacts. If you’re not already accounting for these strategic impacts, it’s time to make some changes in your game.
For those of you that have read this guide to try and decide which format is best for you, we have some parting thoughts. Give both options a try and see what you like and dislike about each. Don’t try and draw conclusions about your winning abilities from too small of a sample size, but do draw conclusions about what you like and what you don’t like. It’s ok to determine what you prefer from a small sample size. You only have to try eating a food once to know you don’t like it.
Find the game format that fits you best, make the necessary strategic adjustments that we covered here, and work your butt off to try and be the best player at that format that you can be. With enough practice and hard work, you can really start to turn a great profit and achieve all of your poker goals and dreams.