It costs a lot of money to play poker.

Figure this: when you are playing Limit Texas Holdem poker, whether you’re in the brick-and-mortar casino or playing Texas Holdem online, you are going to be paying your dues.

First, you have to pay the house the rake. Second, you also have to put in your share of the blinds.

The moment you don’t have enough chips to pay for the rake and the blinds, you know you’re done.

You may just have enough left over to order a drink and give the waitress a $1 tip, but certainly not enough to continue playing in a Texas Holdem game.

The Blind Strategy

You need to spring for the big blinds more than once every hour.

Say the big blind is $20 - you have to have this amount of money when it’s your turn to post the blinds, or you’re out. What should you do so you could stay in the game and even win the game?

You must focus on the pots, yes, but you must steal as many blinds as you can.

That is, you should make it very difficult for other players to acquire the blinds that you have posted, yet you should be absolutely vicious in snatching your opponents’ blinds from them.

The Blind Strategy in Detail

You can protect your blinds by not giving up too easily.

This is not to say that you should recklessly continue playing with a dead hand just because you don’t want to give away your blind.

What I’m trying to say is that you should analyze the situation and find out if your hand is truly and realistically beat or if you have a chance of making your opponent fold and getting your blind bet back.

For instance, if you have an unsuited King and a Jack and your opponents happen to be extremely cautious players who will fold if you raise them even if they’re holding an unsuited Ace and Queen, you should wait to see the flop.

At this point, you have a lot to lose if you immediately give up whereas you stand to gain back your blind if you manage to scare your opponents off the pot. Furthermore, unsuited KJ pre-flop is a pretty decent starting hand.

Now, if its not your blind and you have the same card, you may still wait for the flop but only if you have a drawing hand, which is all an unsuited KJ combo is.

If the flop doesn’t show much promise, you’d better cut your losses and wait for another turn if you think that other players have it better than you do.