Floyd Grooms - The Nitty Gritty of Texas Hold Em

This book is dedicated to the many gamblers who are striving to become professionals, but still havent reached that plateau. It was written to help them grab another rung of the ladder, on their way to becoming, one of the few real professionals, in this wide world of gambling.

(Signed} Floyd M Grooms

Basic Rules of Poker are set forth so that you can refresh your memory of the rules. You have a deck of 52 cards; each deck has 4 suits with each suit having 13 numbers running from Ace through King. The Ace is the highest and the deuce (2) is the lowest however the Ace can be used as a low number to make the smallest straight.

The players can range anywhere from two to ten and the idea of the game is to win the pot by having the best hand after all the betting has been completed.

The Dealer deals two cards face down to each of the players. This is known as the pre-flop. With these two cards a round of betting begins. These two cards are the first cards dealt to all the players from 2 to 10. The round of betting is normally kept rather small because all the players would like to see the flop before betting. But, once in a while one or two of the players may have the best hand with only two cards. The two cards can be two aces that relates to the fact that they have the best hand with those two cards. The second best hand is two kings, followed by two Queens, two Jacks etc. down through two deuces followed by one ace and one king, one ace and 1 Queen Etc down through the remainder of the cards that make up the two card hand to 1 Ace and 1 Deuce. One or both of the players may want to increase the size of the pot and also run out some of the other players that wanted to stay to see the flop.

The player on the left side of the dealer begins play by posting a small blind (SB) bet replacing the Ante in Texas Hold Em poker. The amount of the bet is established by the house. The player on the left of the small blind bet will also post a big blind (BB) bet replacing the Ante in Texas Hold Em poker. The small blind player on the right of the big blind player must call the big blind bet up to the amount of the big blind bet if he desires to play however, he may fold his hand if he does not desire to play this particular hand, or he may also raise. It should be noted that on this first round of pre-flop betting, the betting is capped at one bet and three raises per player. Each subsequent player to the left either Folds, Calls, Bets or Raises until all bets and raises are called or the players Fold their hands. The SB and BB are considered as bets that take the place of the Ante so you normally do not have anyone raising the two bets since you have only two cards on which to wager a bet. Once in a while a bet will be raised just to increase the size of the pot. After the Ante or rather the two bets are made and everyone calls, that will signal the players of the game that a game is in progress.

When this round of betting is finished and all players that still want to play have called. The Dealer then deals three cards that he places in the middle of the table face up. These three cards are called the Flop and these three cards can be used to make the players best hand possible. After the Flop another round of betting takes place. This time the players can check which they are not permitted to do on the first round of betting, call, raise or fold.

After the betting is finished the Dealer deals another card face up that also can be used by the players to make there best five card hands. This card is called the Turn and after the Turn a third round of betting takes place.

Once again after the betting takes place the Dealer deals one more card that is added to the Flop and Turn in the middle of the table. This is the last card of the game and it is called the River. Another round of betting follows while the players utilize the seven cards that have been dealt by the dealer to make their best poker hand consisting of any five of the seven cards.

After the betting is over, the players who have called all raises, review the hands of each of the other players and the player with the best five card hand is the winner and that player takes the pot. In the event that two players have the same identical hand the pot is split between the two players.

This just about covers the play of the game. So you can see it is an easy game to play. It is a game that if you go past the basics you can win a bunch or you can just as easily lose a bunch. The basics is only the beginning of the game and the skill involved far outweighs the basics.

Texas Hold Em Poker is a simple game however the play calls for many decisions that must be made by the player if he expects to win the hand and that is the name of the game

What makes a good Poker player? Is it luck or is it skill? If it is luck all players would be good Poker players at one time or the other. If it is skill only those players who have acquired the skill would fit in that category and the skilled player would have an advantage over the Lucky player most of the time.

The professional Poker player is not a self-centered player. He tries to find out what the other players think, understand the decisions they make and the reasons why they make them. The professional Poker player always tries to have the answer to these questions when sitting at the poker table.

What does his opponent have?

What does his opponent think the Professional has?

What does his opponent think the Professional thinks his opponent has?

The answers to these questions are an advantage a skilled player has over the run of the mill players. As you can readily see the game has switched from a Poker game to a Mind game.

When the professional player knows the answers to those questions he has gained his first advantage but being able to manipulate the answers is a much more important advantage. The Professional then goes about manipulating the play which in the end result changes the answers to the questions. This in turn gives him more advantage over the other players.

His method of manipulation is wide and varied. He can talk a good or bad game, he can play faster, he can play slower, he can bluff, he can do or say anything that tends to detract his opponent to the extent that the player is only guessing and hoping. Often to the extent that the professionals opponent will say to himself after the hand Why did I do that, what I should have done was the exact opposite because I knew my hand was the best on the table. that should be my money instead of his. Remember what the Professional would do. Learn from your mistakes and dont cry about it. Then be prepared for the next meeting of the minds.

Disciplined is a term that is allocated to the professional player by others. He knows that he is not perfect because when he makes a mistake, and he will make them, he learns from his mistakes. He does not blame others for the mistake nor cry about it, he just takes it with a grain of salt and goes on to the next meeting of the minds.

He is disciplined enough to know when to play and when not to play. He realizes there will be times when the cards are falling in the right places and that it is not the time to be a quitter. At times you bet or raise for a variety of reasons, some of which are just simple raises while others are quite sophisticated. You might also raise just to send a message like you had better get out now. At other times you might raise just to obtain some information from one of the players.