Friday

Weasel School

So a few people at work, a couple relatives, and a couple people from the HYD team all want to learn how to play Texas Hold 'Em. I told them I would go ahead and teach them. So I am trying to put together a 1 day "Basics" school. So I am going to start with an outline. If you see anything obvious I missed or think a different order would be better feel free to let me know:

Introduction: The 7 cards of Hold 'em
Here I figure to show them how each individual gets 2 hole cards, then the flop, turn and river are community cards. This sections will also include:
Ranking the hands
If you know the ranking of the hands you have a good start. I will have a little fold-out with it they can keep by them. Perhaps I will have a board with straight, flush, and full house possibilities, as well as a few sample hands; one hitting a straight, one a flush, one two pair, etc. so they can see the possibilities.

Part 1) The Hole cards
Here I will go over the concept of starting hand strength. I will probably have them play a few hands face up so they can see the relative strengths of starting hands. I will really drill the importance of knowing their hole cards, knowing the value of their hole cards, and knowing whether those cards are likely to hit a flop and, post-flop, how well their cards fit the flop.

Part 2) Basic betting strategy
Here I will go over the blind structure, relating their bets to the blinds, options of checking, folding, raising, or re-raising, along with what amounts they should raise if they choose to do so.

Part 3) Play a few hands face-up to give them practical experience of relating what they have heard to the actual game.

Conclusion: Provide a set of links to pokerstars, full tilt, and maybe another free online spot or two.
That will probably be it for day 1. With that information they should be able to understand what is going on.

Day 2:
More strategy:

1) The hole cards: ranking the starting hands
Here I will cover a little bit what hands should be played and which ones should find the muck.

2) Position
Here I will discuss why you can play something like say...K/jo from late position but not early, why certain hands are strong no matter where you sit but others can only be played late.

3) Basic outs and odds
How to calculate outs, the 2% rule, etc.

That should give them a start. Anybody who only wants to ever play casually with family and friends will (theoretically) have enough information to play a good enough game to have fun, not be embarrassed, and, when the cards fall right, maybe even win here and there. If they want deeper strategy they can either read up on it or I could create more advanced material.

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