Tip to get good at poker – your ultimate guide to poker strategy
Poker has always been a game that attracts a lot of interest, but whether you want to play it for fun or to try and win money, the one issue has always been learning the game. The reality is, Poker is a game that is much more than its rules suggest, it’s a battle of wills fought as much in the mind as it is with the cards in your hand.
So how can you get into the game without losing money and learning all the wrong approaches? Our comprehensive guide strips poker back to its essence and explains everything you need to know to go from beginner to winner when you play online poker.
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Mastering the Fundamentals to Get Good at Poker
Although there is much more to the game than ‘who has the best hand’, you do need to understand those aspects of the game before anything else. Most beginner mistakes come from overconfidence in the hand a player has, only to find that it was not as good as they thought.
That means, before focusing on tips and tricks to improve your game, poker requires you to understand the basic hand rankings first, and here they are from 1 to 10, the best hand first:
- Royal Flush (Cards in a sequence of A-K-Q-J-T, all in the same suit)
- Straight Flush (Any sequence all the same suit, for instance 10-9-8-7-6)
- Four of a Kind (Four of the same card, such as having A-A-A-A, regardless of suit)
- Full House (Three of a kind and a pair in one hand)
- Flush (All cards in the hand are the same suit)
- Straight (A basic sequence such as 9-8-7-6-5, with the cards being of any suit)
- Three of a kind (Three of the same card, such as 7-7-7)
- Two-pair (Two separate pairs of cards in one hand, for example 3-3 and 9-9)
- Pair (Two of the same card, such as 2-2)
- High Card (The highest card in your hand, usually Ace counts highest)
Mastering the fundamentals means learning this list, with the best hand at number 1, and the worst at number 10. This is the fundamental way the game works, and while it is true to say the best cards don’t always win when you play a hand of poker, everything that teaches you how to win without the best cards is built off understanding these hand rankings.
Once you have the list committed to memory, getting experience of simply playing Poker, the mechanics of each hand, is the other essential experience you need. More advanced strategies for poker need careful thought and planning during the game, you can’t do that if you are wondering what the next round is, or how you place a bet. Playing free games online helps you get used to the overall game mechanics, while knowing the hand rankings will help avoid many of the beginner mistakes most players tend to make.
How position effects your play, being able to walk away from a hand, beginning to see patterns in other player’s approaches, these are the foundations of successful poker players, and practicing the game is how you develop those skills.
How to develop your poker skills logic?
One of the things you will learn quickly as you play games is that poker is, if it is anything, unpredictable. If you play on emotion, it drives you to certain choices, but if the game then goes against you, it can be easy to second guess yourself, ‘I should have done X’ being the common way a beginner looks at it.
But should you really have done X, whatever it may be? It happened, but poker is a game where you make decisions and then see the consequences. There is no way you could have predicted how the cards played out, so why ‘should’ you have done something that benefited that one specific outcome?
Part of developing from a beginner to a great player is making choices logically, based on the cards and information you have, and figuring out what the most likely outcome there is. By doing this, working through the game without the ups and downs of emotional reactions, the logical approach becomes second nature. In this way, using poker logic rather than emotion, you can begin to build on your basic skills and implement strategies based on probabilities to be more consistent in your play.
Developing a Winning Poker Strategy
The best, and at times most frustrating, thing about poker, is that there is no secret magic key to make you win. Because so much of the game is a battle of will between players at the table, what works for one person is not always going to work for someone else.
Having said that, building a strategy starts with what others have had success with. But it also needs to be an approach you are comfortable with too. The more you play, the more understanding of the game you will have, and you will begin to know what to look for in your initial hand to see potential in the game.
You can build your staking management and approach based on the risk levels you are comfortable with, try ideas from books or experts and refine the approach to suit your own personality. The key to a winning strategy is to make it your own, to focus on your strengths and be a solution that you find comfortable and easy to use.
Advanced Poker Tips, Techniques and Tactics that take your Poker to the next level
As you gain experience, you gain a deeper understanding of the game, and especially the people you play against. Here is the secret to true poker success. The very best players have great strategies and can calculate odds for hand ranges and all the rest, but millions of players can do that. What sets them apart is reading the table, not just the cards but the people who hold them.
Once you begin to master the psychology of poker, to understand your opponents, to see what they are doing and why, then you can begin to use more advanced tactics and techniques to truly master the game.
This can include the use of bluffs, table selections and taking calculated risks based on player behavior.
Learning from Experienced Players as you Play Poker
Beginners find losses hard to take, they dwell on them and tend to focus on the negative. That can lead to mistakes in subsequent hands, leading to a spiral of losses that can feel like the end of the world. In fact, its how many people experience poker for the first few times, and they never get over it and just quit playing.
A journey to becoming the best poker player you can be involves losses, lots of them, so the key is to accept that is simply part of the journey. Even the best pros lose, but every loss should be seen as an opportunity, not as something terrible.
Analyze every loss, and you can usually find a mistake, or something you could have done better. You may not have prevented a loss, after all if a competent player has the best cards, they will find a way to win with them, but you may have been able to see it coming and get out of the game earlier, for instance.
Your experience in poker games is invaluable. Make full use of it, keep records and remember situations. You will make mistakes, if you learn from them though, you won’t make the same mistake twice.
Top Poker Strategy Tips to Improve Your Play
Part of the journey of becoming a better poker player is seeing little tweaks have a massive impact on your success. It is always surprising, but very often, just a small change can transform how you play, and with it, the entire experience.
Here are some to keep in mind:
Understand the Concept of Range at the table
Understanding hand strength is only part of the game, rather than thinking about specific hands, you need to begin focusing on ranges. This is one of the big differences between a beginner and someone on their way to mastering the game.
Beginners will always try and guess what hand someone has and use that guess to figure out what to do next. But in reality, apart from some very rare situations, you will only know a few cards they have access to, and so instead of picking a specific hand, you need to see your opponent’s strength as a range.
In practice it works like this. Instead of convincing yourself another player has a flush, think about the various hands they could possibly have, a flush is one, but they may have a pair, three of a kind or they are bluffing and have nothing at all. Building poker logic is about understanding these variables, and always, always recognizing that Poker is a game of unknowns, and you really cannot be sure what other players have, so work off the range of cards they may have instead.
It does take practice, as a new player your instinct is to guess what others have and play accordingly, but that could mean folding when you have a better hand or sticking with a hand you cannot win. By playing the ranges, you get into the habit of playing with each hand as it actually is, not how you want it to be, and that is a crucial skill to learn if you want to be successful
Know When to Fold ‘Em – Listen to your pot odds
To really transition from average player to poker god, knowing when not to play is one of the most important steps on your journey. It can seem counterintuitive, but one thing all top players share is that they fold. A lot.
Poker is still a random game at heart, and more often than not, the cards won’t be in your favor. In some situations you can still turn that into a winning position, but in most, playing on is only adding to the pot for someone else to take. The most prudent approach is to fold rather than try and force something to happen. This is poker logic dictating actions over emotions, minimize your losses, maximize your wins, that is the name of the game, and learning to fold when you can’t win is a big part of it.
Understand the Importance of Position for solid poker improvement
It’s not just the cards that matter, your position on the table impacts your performance too. Where you are on the table dictates the order in which you lace bets, and that alone can render some strategies ineffective.
There are some subtleties to position, but in general you can consider the rule to be a simple one. The earlier you are in the round, the worse your overall strategic position is in the game. This makes sense just on basic logic. The more players that act after you, the more chance of someone doing something that ruins your plans.
But it is more than that. As you progress, a big part of success in poker is observing other players to understand what it is they are doing, and building your strategy based on how the game is progressing as a result. If you are in an early position, you simply don’t have the information needed to make those strategic choices.
Unless you have a truly special hand, then save your aggressive play for when you are at the button or later, and maintain a defensive approach in those early positions.
Pick Games Carefully and play fewer hands
Sometimes success or failure is decided before a card is dealt, by choosing the right or wrong game to join. Avoiding tables with strong players makes your life easier if the goal is to win, but if you are trying to learn, occasionally choosing a strong table can be a good education, just remember to limit your bets because you are probably going to lose those hands.
The best games are those with multiway pots that give you more options, and tables that have weaker players, or where reraises are happening regularly. All these can highlight inexperienced players, giving you a better chance of success when trying your new strategies.
Fast-Play Strong Hands and control the table
If you find yourself with a string hand, take an aggressive approach. Remember, the goal is to maximize your winning positions, so don’t sit back and watch. When you have an advantage, take it, raise often, bet big and take control of the pot.
When you first start playing poker, this can seem counterproductive and going slow and letting other players gain confidence before striking can seem the best option. But the reality is, however good your hand may be, an opponent may have a better one, so being aggressive can push them out of the game and give you the win anyway.
Bluff with Draws to guide your opponents
Bluffing is one of those skills that you can only really develop as you play the game. It needs to be a skill you master, but the big mistake as a new player is not really understanding where to use the bluff.
If you restrict your bluffing to times when there is still a chance of getting the hand to win, so always before the river and not after, and when you have a hand with potential, then it can keep you in the game to get a chance to win, instead of needing to bluff itself to win. This approach is known as a half-bluff and is the best use of this valuable tool.
Defend Your Big Blind Regularly
There is always a balance with strategy, you should never become predictable by repeating the same thing every time, but you should defend your big blind more often than other positions. Because you have made that mandatory bet, you have a larger interest in the pot than usual, and as you are in the early position in the game, you won’t really know pot odds until later in the game too, all reasons to stay in to get a better picture of the game.
Be Ruthless Against Weakness in the Poker World
Maximize your winnings, minimize your losses. That is the key to poker success, and part of that is being absolutely ruthless against any weakness an opponent shows. Seek out weaker players by choosing games and tables where newer players are found, watch them for a few hands, identify where they can be exploited and then do so.
As you progress as a player, also remember that it isn’t just newer players that have weaknesses, many stronger players have predictable elements to their games, or areas where they don’t do so well. This could be someone who doesn’t like to call bets when they reach a certain size, all of these little things can be used to tip the game in your favor.
Don’t Overstretch Yourself and think about each position
While we talk about poker as it it’s a single thing, the reality is that there are a hige numbers of game variants, and at any online casino, each one will have a wide choice of tables to play at too, each with different ability of opponent.
It can be tempting to try them all, but you can end up confused and making mistakes. Instead stick to one or two types of poker and carefully chosen tables and focus on being the best player you can with those versions of the game.
Play Your Opponent, Not Just Your Cards
One of the truly beautiful things about poker, and why so many love it, is that although it is a card game, it is not a game where having the best cards will win every time. Much of the skill and strategy in poker is focused on understanding your opponents, and finding ways to beat them mentally, regardless of the cards in hand.
Bluffing, betting strategy and so on can help you get an edge over someone else and win, even if you don’t have a hand to beat them. Cards matter, but your game is played with those opponents, so make sure you always play against them too.
Use Poker Software as a way to improve your game
The introduction of online poker revolutionized the game, allowing people to play wherever they may be, and play against others around the world. But that digitization did more than allow anyone to access the game, it also brought with it a range of software tools to help players learn, practice and master the game too.
Modern software is extremely useful, providing information about player history, stats for how they play and real time information about cards and more. All of this can help you improve as a player, and with some software offering strategy suggestions, can quickly help you see how to approach games regardless of opponent strength.
Become a Student of the Game
To really master poker means becoming a student of the game. That doesn’t mean reading one poker guide book, or playing a few hands each week, but immersing yourself in poker. From YouTube tutorials to paying for a poker coach, getting a poker bot to play against while focusing on specific aspects of the game.
Live and breathe poker, play every day, take notice of your weaknesses and rather than avoid them, play to them to improve. Learn everything you can, and never stop. This is how you master poker and reach the top.
Think About Bet Size
Betting strategy is as important as any other aspect of the game, and can help you keep playing but also be a tool that can manipulate your opponents too. Finding the right bet size takes into account the game so far, the players in the hand, your pot odds and so on. It takes practice to get a feel for bet sizing, and how it can help you in a game, so again, practice is needed to really get to grips with it.
Review Your Hands
In the heat of a hand it can be easy to make mistakes, or to make choices that may not be the optimal answer if you were to see the game objectively. Most good poker rooms save your game history and allow you to download and review your hands after a play session.
Professional players do this after every game for a reason, it allows you to look at each aspect of your play and see where you can improve. Take the time to review your games too, it can speed up that learning process.
Resist the Temptation to Bluff
If you are new to the game, it can seem like the obvious approach is to bluff everything and everyone all the time, and see what shakes out. This happens more in online poker, where the ability to ‘read’ an opponent is missing, but it is still a bad idea.
That is because if you bluff all the time, other players will catch on quickly, and take advantage of that. You will lose, and lose badly, as a result. The time to bluff is when you think doing so will cause an opponent to fold. Use it sparingly, and it is almost impossible to second guess the move, but use it often, and everyone knows your game.
Conclusion
Learning to play poker is a journey, of studying the game, practicing and simply playing against others. From the basic mechanics to strategies and bet sizes, playing the game lets you see how they impact opponents, and how you can use them to your advantage.
But the biggest learning curve is to be able to understand your opponents, to predict other player’s behavior, yet that is also key to success in Poker. With modern tools to help, things can go faster than they used to, and you may find that they can really put everything in place using software tools for insight, hints and more. But ultimately, the more you play poker, the more experience you build, the better you will become.