Basic texas holdem strategies include solid starting hand selection and attention to your seat postion at the table. Obviously, playing cards that either are, or could turn into solid poker hands is a good place to start. If two cards are suited, they may well turn themselves into a flush by the end of the hand. But playing two cards just because they are suited isn't a good idea. The problem is, they may not turn themselves into the best flush at the end of the hand. Having the second best hand at the table is worse than finding 2-7 offsuit as your hole cards. At least it's more expensive.

Another common starting hand mistake is playing an Ace with anything. If the second card in your hand is not the same suit as the Ace, it won't help grow your hand into a powerful Ace high flush. And if an Ace lands on the board, that second card of yours may be called into play as a tie-breaking "kicker" card. If it comes up short, you'll be second best again. So before you play A-7 offsuit again, think about what may happen at the showdown.

Besides playing solid starting hands, being aware of your position at the table is very important as well. The last player to act has the greatest advantage. They get to see not only how strongly players feel about their cards by their betting patterns, but they also see how many people will be competing for the pot before they have to make a decision. The simplest way to use position is to remember that acting first is a disadvantage, and the more players you have to act before, the more strongly you have to feel about your cards to justify betting.

Let me give an example of position play. You are holding A-T in your pocket. Not the greatest of cards, but not the weakest either. The flop comes A-Q-3. The first player checks, the second player checks, and being in last position it is your turn to act. Though nothing is guaranteed, the odds are pretty good that you have the only Ace, and you know this by observing the bets of the two players in front of you. On the other hand, if the first player bet, and the second player raised, you would know that perhaps yours is not the only Ace. Or worse, someone may have two pair or three of a kind. You can play this hand however you would like, but the fact is that by being last to act, you can see the other players bets before you need to act. And from those bets, you can gather information about their hands.

One more basic texas holdem skill is knowing when to "chase" hands and when not to chase them. Many times a player will be sitting on an incomplete hand after the flop. Sometimes it will be four of a suit, or four cards in sequence. These hands are called drawing hands because you will need to draw another card to complete them.

What is the very least you should know about drawing hands. To complete the most common ones (drawing to an open-ended straight or a flush), the odds of landing your card are roughly one in five. How can you use this to your advantage? Simple. If you need to bet to see the next card, make sure you aren't paying too much to see it.

If the amount of the pot (plus the bet you are being asked to make) is five times the bet or bigger, you can get ahead in the long run by making that bet. You probably won't land your flush or straight, but when you do, you'll win a big pot as a reward. And, the pot will be big enough to pay for taking that risk. If the pot is less than five times the bet, then the pot is not big enough to justify taking the risk of betting to see that next card.

So, if I have four hearts and need to pay $2 to see the next card, if the pot is $10 or larger (and remember to count your bet in with it also, so $9 in the pot + my $2 bet will make it $11), I'll pay to see it. If the pot was smaller, say $4, "chasing" that flush would be a bad move. The pot simply isn't big enough to reward you properly for taking the risk of making a bet there.

The concept of comparing the odds of making your hand with the amount of money you would win if you do complete your hand is called "Pot Odds". And, I've only discussed the very basics of pot odds. Still, just knowing that much can help you keep chips in your stack that might have been spent chasing cards that weren't worth chasing.

I haven't discussed the art of bluffing. That's because at the low-limit tables, bluffing is usually worthless. With so little at risk, people are much too likely to call your bet and find out you have nothing. Also remember, you need to fool everyone with a bluff. If a single person is not fooled, you've given your chips away. So, no bluffing at the low-limit tables, and no bluffing at pots with many players involved.

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