Wayne Yap’s 10 Secrets to Start Winning in Poker

Contents
1. Position
2. How to play preflop
3. Equity
4. Expected Value (EV)
5. C-betting
6. Dry vs wet board textures
7. Aggression
● Pot odds when you bluff

● Semi-bluffing

● Aggression after your opponent discontinued an

aggressive action
8. Understanding the distribution of hands
9. Thinking in terms of ranges (level 3 or level 4)
10. Playing against archetypes (calling stations, aggro
monkeys, aggressive pros)
11. Worksheet
 Wayne Yap’s 10 Secrets to Start Winning in Poker

Chapter 1: Position

A game of poker starts off in this manner, Small Blind (SB) posts 0.5bb, and Big Blind (BB)
posts 1bb. Preflop action then starts, with Under the Gun (UTG) being first to act, and then it
goes clockwise to Middle Position (MP), Cut-off (CO), Button (BU), SB, and then BB acts last.

After preflop action is over and there are at least two players to the flop (3 community cards),
the action always starts with the first player left of BU (SB starts first, if SB is not in then it’s BB,
followed by UTG… until BU). This will be the case on the Turn (4th community card) and the
River (5th community card).

So when we talk about being in position, we are usually referring to post-flop (including Flop,
Turn, River), and BU is the best followed by players counter-clockwise (BU -> CO -> MP -> UTG
-> BB -> SB). The player that gets to act last is the In Position (IP) Player, while the player that
acts first is called the Out of Position (OOP) Player.
 Wayne Yap’s 10 Secrets to Start Winning in Poker

Acting after your opponent is a significant advantage in poker mainly for two reasons:
1. Being able to see what action your opponent takes before you make an action allows you to
make better decisions

2. In many situations when your range (all possible set of hands that you could have) is stronger
than your opponent’s range (for example when you raise UTG and he calls on BB, on average
you have a much stronger hand than him (called stronger range) and he is forced (best play that
maximises his Expected Value for him) to check to you a lot, and now you have the option to bet
or check. In the reverse situation when the OOP player has the stronger range, he has to decide
whether to bet or not before knowing what you would do with your weaker (range).

If I’m sort of losing you there as it’s the first time you’re listening to the concept of position,
simply remember that for all players, computer simulation softwares, and bots, the results are
the same and you always have more Expected Value (how much you make in the long run aka
EV) when you are IP.

So just play more hands when you are IP than when you are OOP.
 Wayne Yap’s 10 Secrets to Start Winning in Poker

Chapter 2: How to play preflop

The best way to start is to understand that because position is important, you can play loosest
when you are on the BU, and tighter and tighter as you go around counter-clockwise.

Playing loose would mean that you are calling and raising quite frequently, while playing tight
means that you are folding most of the time.

On the next page are some charts that show you how to play if no one raised before you. The
percentage X after the position shows how it is in the top X% of all starting hands in No-Limit
Hold’em. As you notice, there is a lot of bias towards suited cards and the reason is that I
believe it is a lot easier to play flushes and flush draws than top pair and bad kicker (your
second card when you have one pair).

In summary the yellow tiles are hands that you should be playing and the grey tiles are hands
that you should fold.
 Wayne Yap’s 10 Secrets to Start Winning in Poker

BU 40% (Top 40% of starting hands based on playability and equity)

 Wayne Yap’s 10 Secrets to Start Winning in Poker

CO 25% (Top 25% of starting hands based on playability and equity)

 Wayne Yap’s 10 Secrets to Start Winning in Poker

MP 15% (Top 15% of starting hands based on playability and equity)

 Wayne Yap’s 10 Secrets to Start Winning in Poker

UTG 8% (Top 8% of starting hands based on playability and equity)

 Wayne Yap’s 10 Secrets to Start Winning in Poker

If there are more than 6 players in your game, just use the UTG range for the other 3 or 4 extra
positions. It is great play to play tight in early positions for now.

An acceptable and recommended strategy for new players is to only raise or fold when the
action comes to you, limping (calling 1bb) is not a good start for newer players.

If there are limpers, raises, or a combination of both, choose your starting hand range to be one
category tighter (meaning if you are on BU and there is action before you, use CO range).

When you are facing a raise and you are not familiar with what to re-raise (also called a 3-bet),
just do it with AA, KK, QQ, AKs, and some bluffs (eg. A5s, 98s, T9s). A good ratio between the
number of combos (explained in greater detail in chapter 8) of value hands to bluffs for
beginners is 2:1.
 Wayne Yap’s 10 Secrets to Start Winning in Poker

Chapter 3: Equity
I recommend going to http://www.propokertools.com/simulations and find out the following
equities for yourself so that you have a good understanding of how it works.

Without keying in the board, input pocket 2s, you can just use 2s2c (2 of spades and 2 of clubs)
and plays against:

● AdKh (Ace of diamonds and King of hearts)

Then try the following scenarios:

● AKo (Ace King offsuit) vs QQ (pocket queens - any suit)

● JTs (Jack-Ten Suited, choose your own suit) vs pockets 5s

● AKo vs AQs

● JhTh vs 9s9d on 9h8h2c

● JhTh vs 9s9d on 9h8h2c2d

● JhTh vs 9s9d on 9h8h2c7s

● AsKd vs QsQd on QcJdTs

● AsKd vs QsQd on QcJdTsTc

Then play around with the simulator for another 10 hands that you’re curious about.
Really do this, because understanding how equities work preflop, on the flop, and on the turn
helps you understand the game better!

Notice that at the bottom green bar there is a “Syntax help” between “Ad” and “Recent”, if you
click this, it helps you with the syntax for input
Try out another few more:

● 99+, AK, AQx vs JJ

● 15% vs 15%-30%

● AK vs QQ-99
 Wayne Yap’s 10 Secrets to Start Winning in Poker

Now that you understand how equity works; what it really means is that if an exhaustive list of
flop, turn, and river, is played, how often each hand or range would win.

Which basically means you want to be playing hands that have high equity.Having more than
50% equity means you can always go all in and be profitable.

There is usually extra money already in the pot so you can add that up and you need less equity
to go all in. If you think you have at least 45% equity in a spot and there is dead money in the
pot, it’s almost always fine for you to go with your hand.
 Wayne Yap’s 10 Secrets to Start Winning in Poker

Chapter 4: Expected Value

The definition of expected value (EV) is an expansion of equity. If we go all in preflop and you
had AsKs and I had QsQd, you would have 45.88% equity and me 54.12% equity.

If we were playing heads up and therefore there are no dead blinds in the pot, when we put in
$1000 each, the pot would be $2000 and my share of the pot would be:

54.12% X $2000 = $1082.4

Since I committed $1000 into the pot, my EV in this spot would be +$82.40, so we would call
this a +EV spot. On your end, you would only get back $917.6 and would be -$82.40 in EV.

However, given that the game play usually looks like this:
I raise to $30, you raise to $90, I raise to $230, you raise to $1000 and I have to call $770.
The EV of my call would be $770 to win on average $1082.4, meaning that my call is +$312.4 in
EV.

Given that when you went all in for $1000, you would not have known I had a hand that would
call and have more equity than you, your all-in at that point would have been +EV as well, but
just because of the unfortunate situation I have a good hand, you lose some overall EV.

If I had top 5%(99+, AKo, AKs, AQs, AJs, KQs) of hands when I raised to $230, but only called
the all in with the top 2% (QQ+, AKs OR JJ+) of hands:
I would be folding 60% of the time and you would be winning the $320 of money already in the
pot.

The other 40% of the time you would have your AsKs against top 2% of hands (AsKs has
38.38%), giving you another $767.6 for your $1000 invested, for -$232.4 in EV
Doing the math to add those two up, you would have:

​(60% X 320) + (40% X -$232.40) = $99.04

Meaning you won $99.04 of EV for your shove!

 Wayne Yap’s 10 Secrets to Start Winning in Poker

Chapter 5: C-betting
An easy way you can win against opponents that are new to the game is to bet after you have
raised preflop (remember in chapter 2 we advocated a raising strategy preflop).

In general, when opponents are not aware of ranges, they are trying to see if they hit the board
before deciding whether or not to continue, which means our opponent is required to pick up a
pair or a draw before they commit more money in the pot.

Therefore, by simply firing for 50-67% of the pot (if the pot has $100, you would need to bet
$50-$67), we would win the pot fairly frequently.

With 50% size, if we win 1 in 3 times we break even, plus our range still has equity when called
(because we have some strong hands in our range + our bad hands can suck-out), and
therefore you start to see why it’s a good strategy to bet relentlessly on the flop.

This is MUCH better when the pot is heads up, as this means you only have one opponent that
needs to fold. Due to Bayes’ Theorem aka Conditional Probability, it’s a lot easier to make one
person fold than it is two.

So the simple strategy is to play aggressively when there is only one opponent, and then play
more passively when there are two or more opponents left.
 Wayne Yap’s 10 Secrets to Start Winning in Poker

Chapter 6: Board textures

For this beginners’ guide we will expand on board textures only on the flop, but some of this can
apply to the turn too.

Following up on Chapter 5, I’d like to explain to you a few different types of board textures and
how to play on those:

1. Dry boards without flush draw - eg. As9d5h, KsKd2h, Ks8d3c, Qd7s2h (another common
notation is AK2r or Q42r where r signifies “rainbow” meaning 3 different suits are on the board)

2. Dry boards with flush draw - eg. As9s3h, Ks5s2d, Jh4h2d, Th3s2h

3. Wet boards without flush draw - eg. T98r, QT8r, 765r, KJ9r
 Wayne Yap’s 10 Secrets to Start Winning in Poker

4. Wet boards with flush draw - eg. Ts9d8s, JhTs7s

5. Monotone boards - eg. Ks8s2s, QsJsTs, Ts8s6s, 4h3h2h

In general, you want to be c-betting much more frequently as ordered 1 to 5, meaning you bet
much more frequently on dry boards without flush draws > …. > monotone boards
The reason for this is it’s much harder to hit something on disconnected (aka. dry) rainbow
boards, and the defending range (to call or raise vs your bet) on this board is less intuitive (you
are supposed to call Ace high or float with backdoor flush and straight draws), so many people
especially beginners fold too much on these boards. So that means betting a lot more often on
dry boards!

This also means that on the flip side when the boards are wet or monotone, you tone down your
aggression and only bet with good draws and good made hands.
 Wayne Yap’s 10 Secrets to Start Winning in Poker

Chapter 7: Aggression
I would recommend beginners to play an aggressive strategy.

I would recommend intermediate players to play an aggressive strategy.

I would recommend most advanced players also play an aggressive strategy.

You see where this is going. It’s great to play aggressively especially if you do it correctly.

So what does aggression mean?

● To bet when you’re checked to

● To c-bet after you raised preflop

● To raise when others bet against you

● To raise and 3-bet (re-raise preflop is putting in the third bet after the blinds and raise,
making it the third bet and therefore called a 3-bet) preflop often.

Why?

1. Pot odds when you bluff - Like I mentioned in the c-betting chapter, when you bet 50% of
the pot, you only need the opponent to fold 1/3 of the time to immediately break even (without
counting your equity in the pot). When you bet 100% of the pot, you only need your opponent to
fold 1/2 the time and you break even.

2. Semi-bluffing - On top of having the fold equity, you also usually are betting with a pair,
overcards (bigger than the top card), or a draw, and having that opportunity to hit or to have the
best hand is a big thing for your win rate in poker.

3. Aggression after your opponent discontinued an aggressive action - This is defined when
your opponent missed a bet, he raised preflop but did not follow through with a c-bet, or he bets
the flop and checked the turn, or he bet the flop IP and then checked behind on the turn.
 Wayne Yap’s 10 Secrets to Start Winning in Poker

Although this is not a one-size fit all strategy as opponents get better, if you are all new to the
game start noticing when your opponent took a previous aggressive action but slowed down,
fire away in those spots! (The caveat here is if your opponent is a REALLY tight player that
would only bet the flop with a strong hand, and then may check other streets even when they
have a strong hand. Be careful of this opponent type, and never pay them off when they do bet
on later streets as they will usually have the nuts or close to it, where the nuts means the best
possible hand on that board).
 Wayne Yap’s 10 Secrets to Start Winning in Poker

Chapter 8: Understanding the distribution of hands

The probability you get Aces preflop is 6/1326 or .45%
The probability you get Kings or aces preflop is .90%
The probability you get AK or QQ+ is (16 combos of AK, 6 combos of QQ/KK/AA) is 34/1326 or
2.56%
There are 4 of each card in the deck, and therefore you have 6 combos on AA - AsAd, AsAh,
AsAc, AdAh, AdAc, AhAc, and 16 combos of AK - 4 suited and 12 offsuit.

When you understand how frequently you get certain classes of hands, you also understand
how often your opponent gets those handsl, and therefore you can construct your strategy
accordingly.

In general, if you are in CO or BU, having that AK or QQ+ for 2.56% is a really strong hand and
one that you want to play very aggressively with.
However, if you are in early position, especially UTG in a 9 or 10 handed game, having AK and
QQ now is not as powerful and you should start being more careful.

Another exercise that you can do on your own is to understand what hands are in the following
top percentages:
4%
6%
8%
10%
12%
15%
18%
20%
25%
30%
40%
50%
70%

Some of them are in the charts I gave you, try to be resourceful and find a way to solve these on
your own (I recommend PioSOLVER - they have a free version for turn and river play)
 Wayne Yap’s 10 Secrets to Start Winning in Poker

Chapter 9: Thinking in terms of ranges (level 3 or level 4)

Level 1-5 thinking is explained in my course “Secrets to Win at High Stakes Poker"

Level 1​​ thinking is when you only think about your hand and the board

Level 2​​ thinking is when you think about your hand, the board, and your opponent’s hand - ie.
you put your opponent on a hand

Level 3​​ thinking is when you think about your hand, the board, and your opponent’s range - ie.
you put your opponent on a range (or set of possible hands that he would get to that spot with)

Level 4​​ thinking is when you think about your range, the board, and your opponent’s range - ie.
you consider how your range fairs against your opponent’s range

Level 5​​ thinking is where you think about the ranges, the boards, and your overall strategy of
how it plays against another strategy (this is explained in greater detail in my course “Secrets to
Win at High Stakes Poker)

Eg. When you raise preflop from UTG with 8% of hands, and your opponent calls from the BB,
you start thinking your opponent has 4%-30% of hands here and play your flop strategy
considering whether you are an equity favourite with your range on any particular flop or not.
My recommendation for you is to try and fit yourself into one of these levels, and then take the
next step to jump one level up.

Please join my Facebook group to ask for advice if you need help with this
 Wayne Yap’s 10 Secrets to Start Winning in Poker

Chapter 10: Playing against archetypes (calling stations,

aggro monkeys, aggressive pros)

Calling stations (Loose-Passive)

These are the easiest targets to win money from in poker and you should really remember
these rules below:

1. Never ever bluff against them on the Turn or River.

2. Don’t call their bets, they usually have a strong hand when they bet as they like to go to
showdown

3. Don’t EVER call their raises on the flop, turn or river unless you have a REALLY
REALLY strong hand or draw

4. Raise or isolate (raise when they limp) them preflop as much as you can because you
want to win money off these guys

Weak Nit (Tight-Passive)

1. Bluff them A LOT, especially on the Flop and Turn, as they fold a lot. You might want to
give up on the river because once they call flop and turn, they usually have a pretty good
hand that might be hard to bluff them off.

2. Do not value bet them thin (a thin value bet is when you are betting expecting to get
called by some better hands and some worse hands, but you have the better hand often
enough for it to be +EV)

3. Don’t call their bets, they usually have a strong hand when they bet as they like to go to
showdown

4. Don’t EVER call their raises on the flop, turn or river unless you have a REALLY
REALLY strong hand or draw
 Wayne Yap’s 10 Secrets to Start Winning in Poker

Aggro Monkeys

1. Play high equity hands and stick with those hands

2. If you have top pair and the board doesn’t run out too dangerously with flush and straight
cards, just call them down. You will not always win but you’ll win often enough.

3. Play your draws aggressively against them, since they are bluffing too often, they can’t
call that often and therefore playing your draws aggressively is a winning move

Aggressive Pros

1. These are a bit different from the aggressive monkeys. If you have pros in your game, try
to be a bit more careful against them and really just play high equity hands. In general,
pros will categorise you into someone that calls too much (calling station) or folds too
much (weak-nit), so try to understand what they think you are and reverse it on them!

2. Being careful and tighten your range up preflop and on the flop against pros is advisable.
 Wayne Yap’s 10 Secrets to Start Winning in Poker

Chapter 11. Worksheet:

1. What is the worst possible position to be in and why?

2. What is the best possible position to be in and why?

3. How do these positions affect your hand selection range pre flop?

4. How much equity does AK have against 22?

5. Given the above example in Qn 4, if you (AK) and your opponent (22) both went all in
assuming it’s a heads up situation without any dead blinds for $1000 each, what would
be your EV (expected value)?

6. How should your C-betting frequency on the flop change if it’s heads up vs a 3-way pot?
4-way pot?

7. Give an example of a dry board and a wet board (flop). How should your aggression
(c-betting frequency) differ between these 2 boards?

8. Why is it recommended to play aggressively in general?

 Wayne Yap’s 10 Secrets to Start Winning in Poker

9. How many combos of AKo are there?

10. Does JTo fall into the top 10% of hands?

11. The level 1 of thinking is about your hand and the board. What are the other levels are
there to think about?

12. What level are you currently on and where do you want to go?

13. How should you play against a weak nit (tight passive player)? Why?