Your Poker Cheat Sheet
A poker cheat sheet is a guide to help you learn the fundamentals to play solid poker in order to beat micro and low stake games. Like any endeavour, it takes time, experience and regular evaluation to become a master. The idea behind a cheat sheet is that you can refer to it easily to help you make better decisions than you would otherwise. While you have cheat sheets with poker other gambling games e.g. Blackjack, this is not real ‘cheating’. Cheating the casino is not allowed and can get you into trouble. The term “cheat sheet” is another word for “guide” or “tips”.
This article will detail everything you need; hand rankings, basic odds, the types of hands to raise, call and re-raise with, post-flop poker tips and some advice on tools you can use.
If you are in a hurry you can download our free poker cheat sheet instantly below or at the bottom of this article if you continue reading. Enjoy!
Hand Rankings
If you are new to poker, you will need to understand the proper hand rankings. The list below should help you understand the respective hand rankings. It’s worth noting that the top hand below is very rare. A professional can count on one hand the number of times they have made a royal flush.
Calculating Outs as Odds
To make better decisions, you will want to know the chances of improving your hand and reconciling that with the amount your opponent is betting. The table below should help you see, at a glance, the approximate percentage of you making your hand for the most common scenarios you will find yourself in. After a while, calculating your outs and converting them to odds will become intuitive. In the meantime, feel free to refer to this table.
| Draw Type | Number of Outs | Turn & River (2 Cards) | River (One Card) |
| Flush & 2 Overcards | 15 | 54% | 33% |
| Flush & 1 Overcard | 14 | 51% | 30% |
| Open End Straight & 1 Overcard | 11 | 42% | 24% |
| Flush | 9 | 35% | 19% |
| Open End Straight | 8 | 32% | 17% |
| Set to Full House or Quads | 7 | 28% | 15% |
| 2 Overcards | 6 | 24% | 13% |
| Gutshot Straight | 4 | 17% | 9% |
| Backdoor Flush or Straight | 1 | 4% | 2% |
Hand Selection – Open Raising
Choosing which hands to play is very important. It’s the first key decision of any poker hand when you are starting out in poker. The most important thing is to play a selective hand range based on the position you are in. As you lack the post flop skills to profitably make marginal pre flop calls, you will need to be careful about the hands you play. The table below is a guide to hands you can open raise with, if you are first to enter the pot i.e. nobody has raised in front of you. Please note that the table assumes you are opening the hand ranges in the earlier positions too e.g. You open KJ suited in early position therefore you are opening it in mid position too.
| Early Position | Middle Position | Late Position | Small Blind |
| All pocket pairs from 5s to Aces | KJ/KQ/KT/QJ | Any Ace | N/A |
| AT-AK Suited | Suited Aces | All Suited Kings | N/A |
| KQ Suited | Pocket 2s to 4s | All Connectors | N/A |
| KJ Suited | Suited Connectors above a 6 e.g. 7h 8h | All Gapped Connectors e.g. Q9 | N/A |
| QJ Suited/KT Suited/QT Suited/JT Suited | Any suited cards with at worst 3 gap between e.g. Jd8d | N/A |
Please note I have not assigned a hand range to open raise from the small blind with. I firmly believe this is the worst spot to open raise in Texas Holdem from and don’t think it would be wise to advise a wide opening raise range from here. Instead, play very careful from there. Look to minimize how much you lose and let the strong hands do their “talking” so to speak.
Hand Selection – Calling Raises
It’s important to recognise you won’t have the pre-flop aggression in the hand when calling a raise. Therefore you should be calling raises with hands that are at least as equal in value to the likely range your opponent is raising with, and preferably with position on them.
There is no trick to knowing what hands you should call player A’s raise with. Instead, think about the type of player raising and act accordingly. Consider their table image. In other words, if it is a loose player opening, you can widen the hands you call with as he is opening wider than a tight player. If it is a tight player opening, you should be looking to play less hands or hands that can break him and his premium hands e.g. low pairs.
As a very basic guide consider calling raises with the hands below.
Hand Selection – Re Raising AKA 3 Bet
Starting out, I recommend 3 betting with AK suited, Pocket Queens, Kings and Aces. As you develop and gain experience you will certainly be re raising with other hands but this cheat sheet is purely for the new player playing micro/low stakes poker.
Post Flop Poker Tips
You will quickly learn that playing the flop, turn and river is complex. As you are playing a selective hand range to begin with, you will not be facing as many difficult situations as a more experienced player. Check out some tips to follow below.
Miss the Flop? Get out of the way
Beginners make the mistake of going too far and investing too much in a hand that hasn’t any value. If you get to the flop and haven’t a pair or draw, it’s best to get out the way and let other’s contest the pot.
Be wary of straights and flushes if betting gets large
When the your opponents are betting large or re-raising you and the board is heavily co-ordinated with potential straights and flushes, you need to be careful. A tight player is unlikely to be playing fast with a one pair hand in this scenario.
Don’t bet 50% or more of the pot
When start out at poker, there’s no need to be trying advanced overbets. Instead, keep your sizing on the slightly smaller size. You will often find a bet of around 1/2 of the pot will accomplish many of the things you are trying to achieve. It is also sizeable enough that it will command respect from your opponents. Conversely, min bets and bets more than the pot will accomplish little and give others the impression you are clueless.
Don’t attempt crazy bluff bets in multi-way pots
Anytime there is more than two people involved in a pot is a tricky situation. The more people involved, the greater chance someone has a strong hand. Therefore, you should limit your big bluffs if you’re in a pot with several opponents.
There is no need to slowplay at micro-stakes
Trappy slowplay poker is not necessary in the micro stakes games. People are more inclined to call you down so there is much less need for deception. Rarely will slowplaying a hand get you more value than just betting it outright.
Bet top pair or better hands
Top pair or better is often going to be the best hand so don’t be afraid to bet it out. By doing this you will get value, protect the best hand and also find out information from your opponent when they react.
Don’t get too attached to ace king if you miss
One of the biggest mistakes rookies make is playing ace king too aggressively after the flop. Remember, if you miss the flop, it’s just ace high, and a meagre pair of deuces beat you.
Play Live or on a Device
Never has poker become so fun and diverse it can be played anywhere from the local casino to your handheld device or even your desktop. You have many options on how you want to deposit and play. But how do you find the right casino? Well, visit Minimumdepositcasinos.org and check out their top list. You can start playing with as little as $1 casino deposit. So just sit back and enjoy a hand of poker from the comfort of your home.
Tools for Finding Best Sites
A cheat sheet wouldn’t be the same without offering advice on available tools online. There are some great resources and comparison sites that let you know the best casino and poker sites around. Casinobonusca.com is one of the best at offering comparisons between casinos. These websites will give you the relevant information on bonuses, tournament schedules, payment options and customer support features. These are all necessary components to a trusted site and something you should look out for. The best sites are the softest sites as they will have new and weak opponents on them. If you play on these sites and use this cheat sheet, you will have the advantage on them.
Conclusions
This cheat sheet is aimed at the new player coming to poker in 2021 who has no experience but wants to learn quickly. Understanding hand rankings, what hands to play and the basic odds are the most simple and fundamental skills to be a competent player, capable of winning at micro stakes. There is so much more strategy and complexity to Texas Hold’em that can take years to master but we hope this cheat sheet will help you at the start of your poker journey. This sheet is designed to help poker players but there are other sites offering a complete guide to finding a new casino in 2021.
If you enjoyed this article perhaps you’d like to read our articles on poker tournament strategy, 6 max poker or becoming a poker shark.
Feel free to contact us if you are interested in finding out how we can help you improve your game and bankroll in 2021.
Download Texas Hold’em Cheat Sheet
You can download our poker cheat sheet below for free.