What Makes a Good Texas Hold’em Cheat Sheet?

Texas Hold’em Cheat Sheet

For anyone considering playing Texas Hold’em, taking advantage of tips is vital to grasping how poker is played. The most effective way of coming to grips with how poker works is to use a reference guide, otherwise known as a cheat sheet. There are loads of cheat sheets online, however, some are decidedly poor. So lucky for you we’re going to detail what is required for a good poker cheat sheet

1] Hand Rankings


An absolute must is the hand rankings, otherwise a newbie can easily make an error thinking they have the best hand. The hand rankings range from high card (worst possible) to royal flush. If you’ve ever played the old 5 card poker game, you probably know the hand rankings already but here they are for those of you new to poker: 

  1. Royal Flush
  2. Straight Flush
  3. 4 of a Kind
  4. Full House
  5. Flush
  6. Straight
  7. Three of a Kind
  8. Two Pair
  9. One Pair
  10. High Card


2] How to Guide 

A good Texas Hold’em cheat sheet will detail the mechanics of how poker is played. This starts with the action before the flop to the close of the hand. It will inform readers on how many players can play, the actions involved; call, bet, raise or fold and what they mean. If you’ve read a cheat sheet that doesn’t tell you how the game is played, you’re in the wrong place. It should list the different rounds of betting too; pre-flop, flop, turn and river. It also needs to explain the importance of small blind, big blind and the button. 

3] Pre-Flop Tips

Another thing to look out for is hand selection tips AKA pre-flop tips. A cheat sheet will advise enthusiasts of the types of hands to play and where from. Pre-flop is an area of the game many beginners make mistakes due to the wide range of hands that look “pretty”. For instance, a beginner probably gets excited looking down at a king or an ace but if the second card with it is low, then its unlikely to be profitable to play it. As such, a good cheat sheet will offer advice on what hands are worth playing and which should be discarded (folded).

4] Recommended Sites

Lastly, most poker training sites cheat sheets offer additional support by way of recommending poker sites. This a great tool as it saves you time and money trialling sites that should not even be considered. Its worth noting that some sites are advocates of specific sites due to affiliate marketing collaborations, however, the fact they promote the site suggests that the poker site has massive infrastructure and does well. Therefore, its probably worth playing on anyway, regardless of the party pushing it on their cheat sheet. 

There you have it, four things to look for when using a Texas Hold’em cheat sheet. We hope you find the tips in this article useful and help you at the start of your poker journey!