Hello, my name is Eric, also known as URounder.
Welcome to No-Limit Hold’em Fundamentals
brought to you by Rounder Casino.
This course is for anyone who wants to learn
or improve at poker.
Before we get into the course, I want to congratulate
you!
Taking the time and energy to learn a new
skill or admitting that you have room for
improvement takes effort.
Deciding to take this course is your first
step towards mastering a new and rewarding
skill.
Where do we start with a beginner course on
poker?
We start with the basics; The rules, the language
of poker and from there we gradually build
confidence by learning fundamental poker concepts.
Many poker players imitate what they see on
TV, in the casino or on their favorite Twitch
Poker stream, but if you want to have confidence
you need to understand the fundamentals those
players built their strategies upon.
You cannot accurately play the way they play
just by watching; poker is too complex.
As a simple example, think about why you might
bet in poker.
What is the underlying reason to ever put
money into the pot?
Pause the video and leave a comment; Why do
we bet in poker?
I want to define a couple terms before going
over how this course will train you to be
a better poker player.
Strategy is a is a high-level plan to achieve
one or more goals under conditions of uncertainty.
This is good because poker is a game of imperfect
information.
A heuristic is any approach to problem solving
or self-discovery that employs a practical
method that is not guaranteed to be optimal,
perfect or rational, but which is nevertheless
sufficient for reaching an immediate, short-term
goal.
To solidify the idea of using heuristics in
poker I want to pull up an example hand.
I will use some poker training software called
poker snowie to illustrate the use of heuristics.
In this example our hero has Nine Nine.
Three players fold and we make a raise to
$2.25.
The player on the button folds, the player
in the small blind folds and player three
makes a call.
The flop is K73.
Our opponent checks and we have a choice to
make.
Check or bet, what should we do?
This is a common situation in No-Limit Hold’em.
We have a lot of choices.
We could check, or we could bet $1…
We could bet $2, or $10…
How can we employ a practical method which
is sufficient for reaching our immediate,
short-term goal of making a good play?
We use a heuristic.
We pick any bet and then test our heuristic
for that sizing.
In this spot we will ask ourselves “do worse
hands call or do better hands fold?” if
either is true, we should consider betting
a reasonable choice.
One hint when using heuristics like this:
do not overthink it.
Do not use one hand passing this test to justify
your action, think about which is most often
true for all the hands your opponent might
hold which is also known as your opponent’s
range.
[A range in poker, is a selection of possible
cards that a player might be holding.]
First, we will use it for a large $10 bet.
Take a second and ask yourself if betting
$10 will get worse hands to call or better
hands to fold?
Pause the video, think, leave a comment.
Now ask yourself if betting $1.25 will get
worse hands to call or better hands to fold?
Pause the video, think, leave a comment.
Ok now that you have written your answers
in the comments, I will share my thought process
using this helpful heuristic.
If I were going to bet $10, I do not think
any worse hands would call, I also cannot
imagine many better hands folding, therefore
this heuristic would suggest betting $10 is
not the right play.
If I were going to bet $1.25, I do think worse
hands would call, I do not think any better
hands will fold.
Therefore, this heuristic would suggest betting
$1.25 is a reasonable choice.
Now let’s see what our training software
thinks!
As you can see, PokerSnowie thinks that betting
$10 here is a big mistake compared to checking.
It thinks we make about $1.25 betting $10
vs $2.56 when checking.
Testing the smaller $1.25 bet we see that
PokerSnowie thinks this is the bet we should
make, not only that but this bet will make
us $2.75 compared to that $2.56 when checking.
It takes practice and repetition to do this
quickly and automatically at the poker table
which brings us back to our last definition.
Practice is the act of rehearsing a behavior
over and over, or engaging in an activity
repeatedly, for the purpose of improving or
mastering it.
Now that we understand the individual parts,
let’s put it together into a system we can
use for constant improvement at the poker
table which I call the iterative poker learning
process.
We learn the fundamentals of poker, turn those
into a basic strategy that we can use quickly
and effectively at the table with heuristics.
Then we practice it and refine it over and
over until it is 2nd nature, we review hands
to find any disconnects.
After that we move into more complex areas
of the game repeating this process.
Nothing on here is about how much money we
win, only how we refine and build our skills
over time.
Welcome to Beginner No-Limit Hold’em: The
Fundamentals of Poker.
Keep in mind this course is 100% free.
To discuss this course with others, join our
discord server.
If you would like to explore a more advanced
course there is a link in the description.
Thank you for watching
