In Texas Holdem good cards are not a guarantee of your win. The main thing is to know how to play those cards.

Euphoria from receiving a monster hand must not make you close your eyes and forget about strategy thinking you’re going to be a winner anyway. What you do with your hand can make the difference between taking down a big pot or getting slim winnings for your good cards.

You may find many pieces of advice on how you should play made hands. Some recommend slow-play, others – bet out. In fact, no one can give you a unified recipe for effective playing of a made hand. There are many factors which may influence the way you are playing. What you should remember is that you need to get your opponent pot-committed. That will give you an opportunity to get him all-in by the river and steal a big pot with your monster hand.

To slow-play with your monster hand is a good tactics when played against an aggressive opponent in his early position. You will enjoy flopping a set on a raise and having him bet into you repeatedly, so to say “feeding the monster”.

So, poker professionals would never slow-play a made hand except for the case when they hit big against an extremely aggressive player who can’t but steal pots. If you suspect he’s made a top pair on the flop, you should re-raise him on the turn so that you got him pot-committed before putting him all-in on the river.

If you want to get someone pot-committed, the turn is the best period to do that. When he starts betting into you, you’d better double or triple his bet on the turn and he’ll surely follow you all-in on the river.

As to betting, it is effective into tough players as it immediately allows determining whether they have a hand or not. Thus, if they call the bet, they are likely to hit top pair on the flop and you’ll be able to pot-commit them by the river.

Just like with slow-playing, you should choose the turn to pot-commit your opponent and set him up for an all-in at the river. If there’s a draw that can beat you and you’ve got a lot of chips in the pot, only in this case you want to all-in the turn.

Also recommended:

1. Limit Texas Holdem Strategy for Shorthand Games
2. Slow playing After the Flop in Texas Holdem: Candidate Hands
3. Advanced Limit Texas Holdem Strategy for Shorthand Games
4. Playing Hands from Late Position in Holdem Poker
5. Ring games (Cash games)