Learning Hold'em by the Numbers

Texas Hold'em poker, along with most other poker variants, has long been held to be a game of both chance and skill. You can not only wait for the right cards to come along, you can also 'read,' in a sense, when the good cards are coming up. While the former is a foolproof way to play (and lose), the latter guarantees some success while at the same time demanding some study and practice. How exactly does skill - in mathematics, particularly - figure into playing Texas Hold'em?

First and foremost, you should be aware that all variations of poker, Texas Hold'em included, have probabilities of some sort in the game. You can figure out your chances for getting a particular card. You can calculate for the hand that your opponent is likeliest to have. You can work out what cards will most probably be dealt next. All it takes is some application of basic concepts in probability.

The big problem is that not everyone has a gift for numbers, particularly in situations like a real game of Texas Hold'em where you're not allowed scratch paper, much less any form of a calculator. You yourself might not have been a big fan of mathematics back in high school or college. The quickest solution for you is to practice playing with a calculator.

Before you begin practicing, get the basic formulas for computing the probability of certain events. You should be able to find them in a statistics book or on math-related websites online. Once you have those, arrange for a few practice games for yourself. You could have some of your friends over for some person-to-person games, or you could go to online poker rooms for some solo play. Once you've started playing, whip out your formulas and your calculator and start winning at Texas Hold'em!

If you're going to practice online or using a computer, you could also get your hands on some specialty calculators. They're usually little calculator applications that are specially programmed to get certain inputs and give specific results. For example, there are hand strength calculators for Hold'em Poker that help you determine just how strong or advantageous your hand is over other hands that could possibly be with your opponents. They're mostly freely available on the internet, too, so you can practice all you want with them.

In the end, what's important is that you just learn using such calculators instead of relying on them every single time you play Texas Hold'em. It shouldn't take you too long because there are only so many possible situations and computations in Texas Hold'em and you're bound to memorize, even do some of them without thinking about it.