How to play Texas hold'em well once you know the rules: the decisions that matter, and the habits that win.
The most common way to lose at hold'em is to see too many flops. Two random cards are an underdog against almost any hand someone chose to raise with, and calling "just to see" adds up to most of what a weak player loses in an evening.
Strong starting hands are pairs, two high cards like ace-king or king-queen, and suited aces. Hands like king-seven or queen-four look playable and are not: when they hit, they usually make the second-best hand. When a hand is worth playing, raise with it rather than calling. Raising wins the pot outright some of the time, and when it does not, it narrows the field.
Acting last in a betting round is a real advantage: you have seen what everyone else did before you decide. Play more hands from late position, with the dealer button or just before it, and fewer from early position, where anyone still to act can raise you.
The blinds act last before the flop and first on every round after it. Defending them with weak hands feels thrifty and costs chips, because you will play the rest of the hand out of position.
When you are drawing, count the cards that would give you the winning hand. A flush draw has nine outs, an open-ended straight draw eight. With two cards to come, multiply your outs by four for a rough chance in percent of hitting by the river; with one card to come, multiply by two.
Then compare that with the price. If the pot holds 80 after your opponent's bet and it costs 20 to call, you are risking 20 to win 80, so you need to hit more than one time in five. A flush draw with one card to come is about 20 percent, so it is close; a gutshot, at under 10, is a fold.
Every bet should either get called by worse hands or make better hands fold. A bet that does neither — a medium pair betting into a board where only better hands will call — is the one that bleeds chips.
Size bets to the pot, not to your chip stack. Half to three-quarters of the pot is a sensible default for both value bets and bluffs, and using the same sizes for both keeps your bets from telling the table what you hold.
A bluff works when the story makes sense. If you raised before the flop and it comes ace-king-four, betting represents a hand you could easily have. Betting into five players on a board of connected middle cards represents nothing, and somebody will call.
The best bluffs are semi-bluffs: bets with a draw that can still win if called. Pure bluffs against several opponents, or against a player who has called every street, are gifts.
Hold'em here is played no-limit, so any hand can cost everything you have in front of you. Big pots belong to big hands. One pair, even a good one, is rarely worth your whole stack against a player who has been cautious all evening and suddenly raises.
When you lose a big pot, the worst thing you can do is try to win it back on the next hand. Tilt — playing worse because you are annoyed — is the most expensive habit in poker.