It doesn't matter wheather you spell it Texas Hold'em, Texas Holdem, Texas Holdum, or even Texas Hold'um you'd better know these before you sit down. If you have been reading and playing a little at low limits, the basics of position and strategy should be starting to make more sense by now. Lets take a look at how to start;

1) Money Management - never, never, never, deposit money into a site you can't afford to lose. When you do make a deposit, play within the limits for your bankroll. The accepted amount by most skilled Holdem players is 300 times the big bet. What this means is if you intend to play 1/2 Holdem comfortably you should have a $600.00 bankroll. If you thinking that sounds high it is. But you have to remember that poker is a game of variance. You will go thru swings, both up and down, and the only way to be comfortable during a downswing, is knowing you have a sufficient bankroll to play until the cards turn back to you. Having an acceptable bankroll will also help you to not go on "tilt" when you have had a couple of losing sessions. One of the most critical (and purely stupid) mistakes a player can make, is playing in a game that is above their skill level and bankroll, trying to get their money back.

2) Table Selection - this is a part of poker that is probably forgotten about the most. People tend to log on to a site or walk in a poker room so pumped up to play, they sit anywhere. If your entering a a typical 1/2 Holdem game at most online sites the minimum buy-in is usually $50.00. If it is a 10 player table, with 7 of the seats taken, and there are four players with $200+, and the remainder have $35-50 don't sit down. Why you ask? This is a classic example of the sharks feeding on the little fish as they happen unknowingly by. What you want to look for is a table where no player has an excessive amount of chips and the table is pretty level chip wise. This should provide you with a more level playing field to begin with. Think of it like this, did you buy the first car or house you saw, then why play in the first game you see.

3) Starting Hands - by now, if you have been doing the required reading, you should have seen various charts of starting hand groups. All of them, even if offered by different authors, are very similar. They usually look something like this;

Group 1 - AA, KK, QQ, JJ, AKs

Group 2 - TT, AQs, AJs, KQs, AK

Group 3 - 99, JTs, QJs, KJs, ATs, AQ

Group 4 - T9s, KQ, 88, QTs, 98s, J9s, AJ, KTs

For now lets stop at Group 4 as playing Groups 5-8 requires a pretty advanced understanding of both position and the skill level of the players at your table.

4) Patience - you may not see any Group 1 or 2 had for three or four rotations. Be patient, they will come. And when they do play them aggressively.

5) Take Notes - if you are playing correctly, you are watching every hand at your table. While waiting for your starting hands to appear, you should be taking notes on every player at your table. Start with the simple things like their playing style or betting patterns. These two are pretty easy to recognize. Ask yourself questions like, how many hands do they play?, do they always raise whenever they enter a hand or simply call?, do they fold the majority of times if there is a raise put in by a player in front of them or do they always reraise?, how aggressively do they defend their blinds? The more you know about the players at your table the bigger advantage you will have when it comes time for you to act. All of the major sites now offer they ability to take notes on players. When you move your mouse over a players name, right click and an option box should appear. One of the selections in the box should be "notes". You will notice that after you have taken a note on a player a little script icon appears by their name.