Holdem Strategy Guide

This is not a tutorial on how to play. This guide assumes the reader has a grasp on the basic rules of Texas Holdem. Rules can be found here and hand rankings here. This information will mostly focused on cash games which is the most common variant in Torn.

Table Layout and position



This picture shows the seat names that I will be referring to throughout this guide. The small blind is seat 1, the big blind (BB) is in seat 2, the seat left of the BB is seat 3 and so forth.



Position is important as it dictates what the betting order at the table is. The later position you are, the later in the order you have to act. This means the dealer gets to act last at every street of betting. Acting last means the dealer has access to information as to how everyone has played the hand so far. It also gives them a lot of control over the pot. Position is one of the most important things in poker and is often neglected by casual or beginner players. Calling a lot of hands out of position means you are often put in a lot of difficult spots and cannot accurately asses the strength of peoples hands.
You should be playing very few hands from under the gun (UTG or seat 3) whereas playing a wider range on the button. (I'll get into opening ranges later)

N.B there is a massive position bug in poker where the order goes get messed up occasionally. It is annoying but you have to accept it to play on Torn. They will hopefully fix it with a new system.

Picking a table

Poker is a game of risk. No matter how good you are (or think you are) you will lose your stack. Even if you make all the right calls you can still suffer a bad beat. This is why you should never gamble all your money. I would advise definitely no more than 10% of your total asset value. Around about 5% is more sensible.

I always try and play with 100 BB's. This stack size will give you enough room to manoeuvre without having to get into tough spots where you are not getting enough value to make calls. You should never play with less than 50 BB's. I always try to play on a table where there is a min limit of 50 BB+. This is because short stacks have very little manoeuvrability. They are forced to go all-in with a very wide variance which makes turns the game into Crap Shoot (a game of luck not skill).

How many people to play with?

This is really up to the player. Be aware with more people the average winning hand strength goes significantly up. This means you should be playing less hands and folding a lot more often. The more people on the table means the average pot is bigger but you will win less hands. Also with more people, the hand time is a lot higher, meaning you will see less hands than playing with smaller numbers.
If you are playing with less people. Hands become more valuable. You should be playing more open than against a full table. This also means you have to be more aggressive.
It is probably best to sit with around 5-6 people if you are a novice. It means you can wait for slightly better hands, without having to play too much with weak cards. Playing 1v1 (heads up) can be very tricky against good players as you have to be able to play any 2 cards with aggression.



Starting Hand Strength

Premium Cards
Ace-Ace
King-King
Ace-King suited
Queen-Queen
AK (off suit or unsuited)

Strong Cards:
Jack-Jack
AQ, AJ, A10 (all suited)
AQ, AJ
KQ suited
Pair of 10's
KJ, QJ, J10 all suited
Pair of 9's
KQ
K10 suited, Q10 suited

Decent Pocket Cards:
Pair of 8's or lower
Jack-9, 10-9 both suited
Pair of 7's
9-8, 8-7 both suited
Ace and any other suited card
A10, KJ, QJ, J10

Playable Pocket Cards
Connected suited cards, not shown above (ie. 4-5 suited)
K10, Q10
K9, Q9, both suited

NB - This isn't a list of what you should be calling with in every situation. Just the minimum requirement you should have before calling.

Anything not mentioned can be considered as junk apart from an Ace rag not suited (an ace with a second card that is quite low). Ace rag is one of the most overvalued starting hands in poker. A9 or lower very rarely gives you a very strong hand and nearly never the nuts (best possible hand). Playing Ace Rag often losses you money to aces with better kicker. On full tables you should be playing it very rarely. Often only in the blinds or late position where there is no bet or a very small bet. The value of Ace rag is often dependent on how many people are playing.


Note, suited cards give a 3% increase in winning over non suited. This isn't massive. Don't overvalue suited cards. Especially two that are not connected e.g Q2 suited is still a junk hand.

Pocket pairs are more valuable before the flop but can be difficult to play if you miss the set. Don't go set mining every time you have them.


Card Odds



So in the picture above you are holding J10 on a QK6 board. You need an Ace or a 9 for the straight. There are 52 cards in the deck. You know what 5 of them are. That accounts for 47 cards that you don't know. There are 8 cards left in the deck that you need to hit (4 aces and 4 9's). This means your card odds are: 8 in 47 chance that you will hit your hand on the turn. That works out to be a 17% chance. If there was only the river to show you would use x/46 as there is 46 cards left unknown.

A rough estimate of this can be found by using this equation: (Total Outs x 2) + 2
So in this case it would be 8 x 2 + 2 = 18%

Be aware though, 2 of the outs in that are considered 'dirty'. If the Ace or 9 of hearts came out your straight would not be the nuts. So your card odds to the 'nuts' on the turn would be 6/47 or 12.7%



Pot Odds


Now you have your card odds. Pot odds are the comparison between card odds and the betting. Say you had 4 cards to a flush with only the river remaining. Your card odds would be 9/46 (9 comes from the fact there is 13 cards of each suit minus the 4 hearts that are known). This is 16.6% or roughly 20%.

There is $100 in the pot and a bet of 10$ to you. You have to call $10 for a chance to win $110. That gives you a 110/10 or 11-1 back on your money. Since this is higher than the 20% (4-1)it is a good call as the expected value is better than the chance of it happening.

If there was $100 in the pot and the bet was $40. You would have to risk $40 to win $140. You are getting 3.5-1 on your money making it a bad direct investment. However, it still might not be a bad call. This is where implied odds come in.


Implied Odds

Card odds and pot odds are both facts. Implied odds are different as they require you to guess how much value you can get from a hand at a later stage in the hand. This requires you to gauge how much you are likely to win if you hit your hand. If I am getting card odds of 4-1 to hit the nuts and have to pay 3-1 to see the last card. If the player I'm up against has a big stack of chips behind or has been betting strong I can presume that another bet will happen after the river. My implied value is higher than the direct pot odds of 3-1 making calling the river the right option.

Table Etiquette

Poker both online and live has etiquette that you should follow.

1) English only in chat - This is also a torn rule
2) Don't talk about a hand you are not in.
3) Don't give an indication of what you folded. ie if you would have hit a monster on the flop don't say it in chat. It influences the odds to the people still in the hand. It's better to leave it to the end of the hand if you really have to say or better yet, say nothing.
4) Don't berate a poor player for bad play - The last thing you want to do is educate a poor poker player about what they are doing is wrong.
5) Keep up with the action - Nothing is worse than a player timing out often or taking 30 seconds to make every decision.
6) No banking - If you are winning and leave a table. If you rejoin make sure you bring back what you left with. It's only respectful to the people that lost money for them to have the chance to win it back.
7) Don't 'hit and run' - Don't play poker if you only have 5 minutes. This also includes running straight after a big win. If you manage to win big, try to play on for a few more minutes. If you have to leave, it's only polite to apologise.
8) Don't kick and mug - If you are the table leader, do not kick and mug someone.

I find a lot of people in Torn don't realise the 2nd and 3rd point. I played a hand recently when I raised and a few players were giving their opinion on what hand I had. This is incredibly frustrating to me. Don't talk about anything to do with the hand until the point someone is all in and there are no side pots (after all decisions have been made).

Not following these rules is likely to get you kicked from a table.

Disclaimer, this guide is not complete. Will be adding more stuff such as bet/raise sizing and tactics over time.

Thank you for reading.

Reference for some of my information
www.poker-strategy.org