No Limit Play after the Flop
"My pocket aces missed the flop. Now what?"
Beginners to No Limit Texas Holdem - and other poker variants for that matter - tend to be to preoccupied with starting hands. The tendency is to forget the fact that after the flop, starting hand values pretty much lose their meaning. Let's look at the different kinds of hands you can get and what to do with them after the flop.
Good Hands
Typical "good" hands are a top pair with a solid kicker, a two pair against a disjoined board and an overpair that is 10 or lower. Now how much you bet depends on the board. If it is well-coordinated, bet the whole pot. If it is a rainbow, bet half. If you bet high on a dangerous board, people will think you may have made your hand. If the board is unimpressive, you still have to bet strongly to keep them guessing if the flop helped you or not. Raise to know how you stand against others. A call is okay and a fold is always good. A re-raise often means they have the better hand.
Drawing Hands
A drawing hand is when you have an incomplete poker hand. To decide whether to chase the hand or not, compare the hand odds against the pot odds. If the hand odds are better than the pot odds, the hand is worth chasing.
To figure out the hand odds, divide the outs by the unseen cards. If you have an open straight draw on the flop, you have 8 outs that can make your hand and 47 cards left. 8 / 47 = 17%.
As for pot odds: If there's $100 in the pot and someone bets $10, divide again. 10 / (100 + 10 + 10) = 0.8%.
In this case, we will chase the hand.
As for how to play this hand: You want your opponents to think you have already made your hand. You can either raise big immediately, or check-raise. A check-raise is good since it looks like a ploy to trap other players. You can even go all-in since your chances of making the hand are good.
Great Hands
What do you do when you have a great hand? Generally, you still want to scare other players out of the pot. That is, unless you have a real monster. Don't be over-excited with a made flush or straight especially if they aren't ace-high. Someone may have that same hand with a higher card, and cause you a bad beat in the showdown. Even a full house can be beaten by someone with an overpair. Also, if you slow play a great but beatable hand, you give other players more opportunity to see more cards.
But if you are confident of winning, you have to lure more money into the pot. You can check-raise or bet hoping a large-stacked player will raise. Then you re-raise.
Bad Hands
If you played a bad hand from the beginning and the flop punished you by not helping it, you should fold at once. If you have a pocket pair and it missed the flop, you can use the odds. But unless the board and the table feels weak, it is usually wisest to fold any bad after the flop.
