20k Poker Guide

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Introduction

This is a poker guide that is aimed at 2-20k no limit tables on Puzzle Pirates.

Puzzle Pirates poker is very very loose with only the rare few that have actually mastered the aspects of the game. So mastering some basic techniques can really put you ahead.

Against the loose aggressive maniac style players you will encounter on a 20k table the best solution is to generally be tight and only play hands you are confident of winning. This guide goes through what you should be calling preflop and the basics of your choices post flop.

Preflop Hand Selection

I will give two starting hand selections for the reason that alot of people will look at the tighter one and say wow that's boring. I would strongly reccomend that when you are just starting to learn poker that being very tight is the key, if you don't know how to act very well then you need the advantage of having good cards. In reality you will still be playing very loose, but tight by puzzle pirates standards.

Tighter Starting Requirements

If you are the sort of person that is very passive and gets afraid easily, then this is a good range of hands for you to call.

All in hands: AA, KK, QQ, AK
1k preflop raises: AQ, AJ, A 10, JJ, 10 10, QK, JK, JQ, 99
200 PoE blind calls: Any other pockets, Ax suited, Kx suited, suited connectors

Ax suited means an ace with any other card of the same suit Suited connectors means any two cards that are together such as 78 of the same suit.

In general this range of starting hands is try to all in on any high pockets or AK, this means TRY to! Don't just press the button preflop and waste your hand, it means raise to say 2k and then if you get re-raised you can push all in.

For a 1k raise, any two face cards or medium strength pocket pairs.

Looser Starting Requirements

Even if you want a loose game of poker you should still have some good starting requirements, to keep it simple I am just going to group the hands into a few sections.

If you want to be a slightly looser player, take the starting hands of a tight player and just move everything up one space.

All in hands: AA, KK, QQ, JJ, 10 10, AK, AQ, AJ (Don't all in without at least an acein your hand)
Raise Hands: Suited connectors, two face cards, any pockets, face card with a mediocre kicker (e.g. k9, q 10)
Call Hands: Any connected cards, Any ace with a mediocre kicker, any king with a mediocre kicker etc.

Flop Strategy

On a 20k full ring rable (10 people) you are going to get nowhere bluffing! If your hand either misses or has a card on the flop higher than your pair fold and give up. Once you become a poker player you might be able to sense peoples hands and make calls on a midpair but for the purposes of this guide I will encourage you at minimum to only call on top pair or significant draws.

Lets go through the sort of hands you might get on the flop.

Top pairs

Your aim for a 20k table is to make a top pair with a good kicker at minimum. The way you should think about calling/betting on the flop is not oh its only a small bet but you should think ahead. If the pot is at 2k and they bet 1k when you have a mid pair, you shouldn't just be thinking about that bet but the fact that after you call he will probably fire 2k, then 4k so by the river you have just called 7k into a 1k pot on a mid pair.

A basic strategy would be top pair = bet 2/3 of the pot, you will get a large amount of callers the large majority of the time. Notice I say 2/3 OF THE POT. There is no such thing as raising a set amount with a hand, everything is relative to the pot.

Overpairs

For an overpair you should generally follow the same basic principal as a top pair, play aggressive and attack the pot.

Do not be blind however, if there are four cards to a straight or three of a suit on the board this is a scary board for an overpair. (This is for general play not just specific to the flop, be aware of flushes and straight opportunities)

Three of a kind /Straight / Flush

These sort of hands are pretty obvious, try and all in! If there is potential for a stronger hand then be a bit cautious however if you just stick to the principal that these strong hands without a scary board mean try and drag people into an all in it will pay off. This doesn't mean you should all in in one bet, drag as many people in as you can!

Drawing Hands

The only hands that are worth drawing to are a flush draw and open-ended straight draw, fold any inside straights etc that you might try to call! This is a bad idea!

The odds on a flush/open-ended are about 2:1 flop to river or 4:1 at each stage. So the general idea is chase these hands whenever there are two or three other people involved in the pot or the bet is about half of the pot. If it is more than this when there aren't many people involved, FOLD!

Mid-pairs, Undercards

FOLD! do not chase mid pairs or pockets that are lower than the board, they aren't worth it! Just wait for a better chance.

Turn and River

The turn and river strategy should be fairly similar to that of your flop strategy, if you have top pair with a decent kicker then bet otherwise check and fold.

Remember that this is intended as a very basic guide for beginners, so I have purposely left out alot so that people can concentrate on the basics of hand selection first. Once you have mastered this guide then you can move on to the more complicated one.