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Online Limit Holdem Strategy

See also

Ten-Handed Games.
"Top ten only" strategy is simple, safe, and very effective. Using this strategy should allow you to build up some profits while you play online poker.
Online players in small-stakes poker games play so badly that the "top ten" strategy will be a big winner in the long haul. There is no need to get fancy and take big swings up and down with your money online: the patient route will smooth out die swings and produce the desired wins.

Make sure that you play in games of an appropriate size for your bankroll. If you intend to risk $100 online, make sure that you play no higher than $1-$2 limit. This way you will have 50 big bets to play with, and you will give the "top ten" strategy a chance to succeed for you. With 50 big bets, you will have a decent shot at turning $100 into a lot more money over 40 hours of play using this online poker strategy.

However, 50 big bets are still not much money in a poker game, and 100 big bets are a much safer amount to start with. Please do not be discouraged if you lose your initial $100 playing the "top ten" strategy. Luck is a big part of poker, and although this strategy is a favorite in any online $1-$2 game, sometimes you can just get unlucky!

Five-Handed Games.
Holdem is a very different game when you are playing it at a table where the maximum is five players. You will find that the swings you take in a five-handed game will tend to be much bigger than the swings you take at a ten-handed table. Beware of this and understand that it is just the nature of the beast! Five-hand-maximum tables don't exist right now in the "real world", probably because the casinos figure they have a limited amount of space and need to use it for full-size tables. Online casinos face no such limitation.

So this poker strategy can be used only online or anytime that the online game you're playing in gets down to five hands. At a five-hand-maximum table, we can now add all pairs, any A-x, and "20" (two cards that add up to 20 or more) to the mix of hands we can play before the flop. You can call two bets with these types of hands or make it two bets yourself with them. Because you are playing more than three times as many hands before the flop in a five-handed game than in a 10-handed game, you may also find five-handed tables a lot more fun, and potentially a lot more profitable.

When you play five-handed poker it is more important to find out where you're at in a hand on the flop. Also, if you have a hand like A-K or A-Q you will end up calling your opponents down a lot more often when you don't hit your hand, so you will naturally be exposing yourself to more risk.

Two-Handed (Heads-Up) Games.
Heads-up poker is strategically much different from a full game. Interestingly, some players who are jackals in a full game tend to do very well in a heads-up game. Perhaps the reason is that they are already used to playing many hands aggressively. Being a tough player in a nine-handed Holdem game requires patience, discipline, and aggressive play. However, being a tough player in a heads-up Holdem game requires super aggressive play, good reads in almost every hand, and the ability to play bad hands well.

The patient players usually don't learn how to play bad hands well. Knowing when to bet with bottom pair on the end because you are certain that your opponent has ace high is an important ability in a heads-up match. In other words, knowing if and when you have the best hand is extremely important in heads-up play. While this may be important in any game of poker, you'll have to do it far more often in heads-up play.

When you're playing against a player who bluffs out against you all the time heads-up, we recommend that you smooth-call with a lot of hands on the flop and on fourth street, and then raise on the river.