Poker Stars Poker Advice

This article is based on advice to new Poker players especially those who enjoy No Limit Texas Hold'em from Daniel Negreanu.

There is a lot of information available about starting hands for tournament poker but not how much you should be betting on them. So here is the Five Big Blinds Rule.

If you are the first player to bet Raise by five times whatever the big blind is. If the game is a $10/$20 game raise by $100. This will protect your hand by making anyone wishing to see the Flop pay a heavy price for the pleasure. If you are an experienced player however only raise by three times.

The difference is because there is more skill involved in playing after the Flop so as the game progresses the chances of winning will swing in favour of the better more experienced players so for a novice the hand should be won as early as possible.
If you are not the first player to bet after the Big Blind player and someone has called the Big Blind bet before you they would only have to place $80 in the pot to call the Raise which diminishes its deterrent value, so instead of raising by five time raise by seven
Although far from perfect this strategy will reduce the number of situations in which the beginner is at a disadvantage because of their lack of experience.
Beginners should keep it simple and either Fold or Raise.
If the player in front of you raised the Big Blind you should re-raise them by five times their raise, if their raise was $60 you should Raise $300. You must deter your opposition from playing past the Flop if they are more experienced than you are.

No doubt this is a very aggressive strategy but it does give the beginner the ability to win the hand at a stage in which they are least vulnerable due to inexperience.

Another tournament poker tip for betting before the Flop is the 30% rule. If your five times the Big Blind is more than 30% of your stack go All In. This is because if you lose the bet you are probably out of the tournament anyway because you will have so few Big Bets left in your stack you will no longer be able to create fear in your opponents and because such a large bet will usually win, going unchallenged by all except those with a great hand.

This advice is not the best strategy overall and a beginner would be very lucky to win a tournament on it alone, however they will probably progress further than they would otherwise. This isn't how Daniel would play himself but he hates to come up against those that do because it levels the playing field and makes rank luck a much more powerful factor in determining the winner.