Simple Poker Cheat Sheets for Beginners | Be Like A Pro
Utilize each of these poker cheat sheets to get a firm foundation for your play:
Poker Hands Cheat Sheet
Poker Starting Hands Cheat Sheet
Poker Odds Cheat Sheet
Calculating Outs Cheat Sheet
Printable Poker Cheat Sheets
Don’t underestimate their power! When I first started playing poker, I didn’t even know how to hold my cards right. But I studied diligently and three months later, when I entered my first poker tournament, I won first place. The secret? Mastering the fundamentals.
I wasn’t a poker tells guru or mathematical whiz. What I did know was which cards to play and when – that alone was enough to have an extreme edge on my competition.
Poker Hands Cheat Sheet
For starters, remind yourself of the poker hand rankings, so you know what hands you’re trying to make.
Utilize each of these poker cheat sheets to get a firm foundation for your play:
However, using this poker hand cheat sheet by itself won’t turn you into a fantastic player. Similar to my tale, you should actually begin with what are known as your starting hands.
Starting Hands Cheat Sheet for Poker
You might be surprised to learn that about 80% of the hands played by professional poker players are folded before the flop! Most hands are poor hands that don’t have enough value to be in the pot.
As I write in “A Girl’s Guide to Poker,” there’s a brief thrill when you first glance at your cards, but then you realize most of your hands are going to end up in the poker equivalent of the trash pile.
..In actuality, most poker hands are terrible. Miscreants in statistics. The losers in math. That one A-list star who never seems to be able to pull themselves together.
True enough, the majority of poker hands are statistical losers, and this is the first thing you should know about the game. Outsmarting your opponents with your card play is the quickest and most straightforward way to advance.
You’ll see how to modify your opening hand selection depending on your seat at the table in a moment. However, for the time being, here is your cheat sheet for starting hands, divided into three levels:
Novice
Play only what is appropriate A, K, Q, J, and T.
Use any two cards to form a royal flush when playing. Put another way, you need to have TWO cards that are the same suit plus one of the following: an Ace, King, Queen, Jack, or Ten. Nothing else matters.
You will fold a lot if you put this method into practice. It’s alright. Since poker is a disciplined game, build solid habits now.
In between
When you’re prepared to advance and improve your poker starting hand repertoire, adhere to these three categories: PARKS, SUITED CONNECTORS, AND BROADWAYS.
The suits of Broadway cards are A-K-Q-J-T, however they are not required to match. Thus, you can now play a hand similar to King-Queen (e.g., King of Clubs and Queen of Spades) even though their suits are different.
A pair is two of the same card, such as a nine and a Jack.
Connectors that are suited have the same suit and are numbered consecutively. hands such as a spade nine and eight or a diamond six and seven. What happens if you are dealt a ten and a nine in separate suits? Organize it!
You can play these card categories flexibly in any position.
Progression
When you can adjust which cards to play depending on position, that’s when you truly start to gain an advantage. This is a first-in preflop raise guide. If no one has raised their hand before you, you raise these.
You start by deciding where you want to sit at the table. Next, you go to this reference guide to determine which first hands you ought to raise.
What if I choose not to abide by these guidelines? You should definitely play the game you want to play; poker is for you. This is merely the basis. You can stray from these standards depending on player types, stack sizes, preflop action, and other factors as your skill level rises.
You are, nevertheless, curious about the overarching logic underlying these stringent regulations.
The Rules Expounded
Why do you want the broadway suit on both cards?
Why not simply use an Ace in any opening hand? The issue is that, if you do this, your Ace-Eight will lose to someone else’s Ace-Jack since you will frequently find yourself “outkicked.” You will lose a lot of money because you will hit a good hand that is not the best. Silver medals are not awarded in poker.
What motivates you to play pairs?
You have a pocket pair when the two cards in your hole are identical. This is fantastic since you don’t need to connect with the flip because you already have a “made hand”! Nobody can take away the fact that you are a pair. (Even the government does not.) Flopping a pair is also surprisingly difficult.
About one-third of the time, you will connect with the flop.
This is true for your rivals as well. A pair gives you a good advantage because they almost always miss.
What motivates you to play appropriate connectors?
Since they are significantly less likely to be the best hand at showdown, number cards are the hardest to play. Frequently enough, flopping a pair of sixes won’t hold up. and even in that case, the pot will undoubtedly be tiny. Because suited connectors can hit straights and flushes, you play them.
You should wait to play these starting hands until you feel comfortable bluffing because this is also not a guarantee. It takes confidence to play draws.
Assume that the flip is A-K-4-6♥ and that you hold 8♠–9♠. Obviously, another spade will raise you to a flush and probably provide you with the winning hand, but what happens if another spade misses? You are going to require a backup strategy.
Knowing when to bluff and when to give up will be important for all the times your straights and flushes don’t come in (sometimes your opponent is just not folding). Unlike starting hands like pocket aces, which are powerful enough to win on them own, suited connector cards necessitate a more complex post-flop strategy.
Poker Odds Calculator
This is a basic poker odds cheat sheet. You may either continue reading as I go into more depth on the most significant ones, or you can print this off as a master list.
letting go of a couple… 29% of two-pair flips 2% Tipping a set… 12% Tipping over a flush… 0.84% Flopping a straight with two hole cards that are related… 1.3% Creating a riverbank flush 35% Cutting a straight, open-ended path beside the river… 32% Taking a deep shot directly across the river… 16% If you flip a set, making a full house by the river… 33% Two overcards versus a pocket pair… 51 percent of lower pocket pair versus higher pocket pair 18% Match against one overcard 70% of joker pairings… 25% After the flop, pair any overcard. 25% flushing of the runner-runner/backdoor 4%
Despite the fact that this is a beginner’s guide to poker, you’d be shocked at how many regular players are unaware of some of these basics. People constantly chase backdoor flushes, despite the fact that they miss around 95% of the time.
Advice: A backdoor flush occurs when your flush requires the turn and river to be in the same suit. For instance, if you hold K♥J♥ and the flop is 8♠9♠3♥, you can still make a flush if the turn and river are both hearts.
If you’re looking to enhance your hand, you may also use this cheat sheet for poker odds, which includes frequent scenarios, to assist you calculate the probabilities.
These are the three most important poker odds that you should be aware of:
creating a flush next to the river 35% Cutting a straight, open-ended path beside the river… 32% Pocket pair against a pair of overcards 51 percent
Instead of two cards coming, making a straight or flush with one will happen—ex. You want to know your chances of hitting a straight after a straight draw has been flopped, so you merely cut the number in half. Thus, the chances of making a straight are roughly 16% and a flush, 17.5%.
A situation where there are two overcards and a pocket pair is called a FLIP since it’s almost a coin toss. Just over 50% of the time, a hand like pocket tens against. Ace-King will prevail. “We’re flipping!” is a common phrase used by poker players to describe the action of racing a pair against two higher cards.
I advise all newcomers to download one of the various poker odds calculator apps to their smartphones and enter the numbers manually. The same probabilities will keep coming up if you repeat this enough. It’s a simple method to start identifying common scenarios and data.
Cheat Sheet for Calculating Outs
Finding the number of “outs” in your hand is another method of examining its possibilities of winning. Calculate the number of cards in the deck that will give you the best hand.
You have eight outs, say, if you need to hit an open-ended straight draw. You hold, for instance, 76. 9♦8♥3♠ is the flop. You’ll be straight if you get any 5 or 10. You need to hit eight cards to win because there are four 5s and four 10s in the deck.
Your odds of hitting on the river can be generally calculated by multiplying your number of outs by four.
Your probabilities of hitting on the turn can be roughly calculated by multiplying your number of outs by two.
As an illustration, flush draws include nine outs (there are 13 cards in the deck total; deduct the two cards in your hand and the two on the flop). To determine your probability of striking your flush by the river (36%) and the turn (18%), multiply 9 by 2.
Some folks would rather mentally run these equities and calculate outs. I can tell you, though, that it’s not required—if you use this cheat sheet for poker, the identical odds and data will appear frequently enough for you to automatically commit them to memory.
Printable Cheat Sheets for Poker.
Print poker cheat sheets from the websites below, or download them for later use.
Poker Hands Cheat Sheet
Starting Hands Cheat Sheet for Poker
Cheat Sheet for Calculating Outs in Poker Odds
Poker Hands Cheat Sheet
Poker Starting Hands Cheat Sheet
Poker Odds Cheat Sheet
Calculating Outs Cheat Sheet
