Want to become a better player, fast? Follow these 10 tips to boost your poker performance & profits. While geared to beginner players, there’s poker tips that even seasoned pros should remind themselves of once in a while.
1. Don’t Play Every Hand / Do Fold More
Probably the number one mistake beginning poker players make is that they play far too many hands. When you’re just starting out playing poker, you want to play poker, and that means staying in hands that aren’t very good just to be part of the action. But playing more doesn’t mean winning more, it usually means losing more. If you find you’re staying in half or more the hands you’re dealt, you need to upgrade your starting hand requirements.
2. Don’t Play Drunk
Countless nights have I sat across a table from someone & watched them get plastered silly and throw away their entire stack of chips. I’ve been that person too - and there are nights where you’re just playing with friends for low stakes and it’s more about the fun than the poker - but if you’re in a casino, watch the alcohol. The truth is, while you may be more relaxed after 2 drinks, it may lead to you playing looser and less sharply, even if one’s not ‘drunk.’
3. Don’t Bluff Just For Bluffing’s Sake
A lot of beginner’s understand that bluffing is a part of poker, but not exactly how. There’s is NO rule that one must bluff a certain amount or at all during a poker game, but many players don’t feel like they’ve won unless they’ve tried a poker bluff. Bluffs only work in certain situations & against certain people, and if you know a player always calls to the showdown, it is literally impossible to bluff that player. It’s better never to bluff than to bluff “just to bluff.”
4. Don’t Stay in a Hand Just Because You’re Already In It
Another common mistake beginners make is to think that “Well, I’ve already put that much in the pot, I have to stay in now.” Nope. You can’t win a pot just by throwing money at it. There may be cases when pot odds warrant a call, but if you’re sure you’re beaten, and there’s no way your hand can improve to be the best hand, you should fold right away. The money you’ve already put in the pot isn’t yours anymore, and you can’t get it back just by playing a hand all the way to the end.
5. Don’t Call at the End of a Hand to “Keep Someone Honest”
This one follows the last tip. I see a lot of players look at another player’s final bet, look at the hand, & say “I know you’ve got me, but I have to keep you honest,” as they throw in a final call. It may be worth it to see if a player really has the hand if you’re not sure & you’re gaining information that will help you later on, but if you really feel a player has the hand he’s representing & you’re beat, why give him another pile of your money? Those bets will add up over an evening.
6. Don’t Play When Mad, Sad, or in a Generally Bad Mood
When you play poker, you shouldn’t do it to escape from being depressed or having a really bad day. You start out on tilt — playing emotionally, not rationally — and you won’t play your best. Likewise, if during a poker game, you lose a big hand or get sucked out on and feel yourself going on tilt, stand up & take a break until you feel calm later on. Fellow players will sense your mood & take advantage of it.
7. Do Pay Attention to the Cards on the Table
When you first start playing, it’s enough just to remember how to play and pay attention to your own hand. But once you’ve got that down, it’s incredibly important to look at what’s going on at the table. In Texas Hold’em, figure out what the best possible hand would be to fit the flop. Make sure you notice flush & straight possibilities. In 7-card stud, pay attention to what’s showing & what people have folded when you consider calling opponents.
8. Do Pay Attention to the Other Players
As you play, one of the single best things you can do is observe your opponents, even when you’re not in a hand. If you know if one player always raises in a certain position, & another has a poker tell when he bluffs, & a 3rd folds to every re-raise, you can use that information to help you decide how to play against them. Once you know that player 3 always folds to a re-raise on a river, that’s when you can bluff & steal a pot.
9. Don’t Play at too High Limits
There are many reasons people move up to a higher limit game than they usually play. Good reasons like they’ve been winning consistently at a lower lever & are ready to move up, & bad reasons like the line is shorter for higher limits or you want to impress someone. Don’t play at stakes that make you think about the actual money in terms of day-to-day life or with money you can’t lose. Even if you had one super-good night at $2/4, resist the urge to play $5/10. The next tip explains more why.
10. Do Pick the Right Game for Your Skill Level & Bankroll
One of the reasons you shouldn’t jump into a $5/10 game after winning a huge bunch of money at $2/4 is because as the stakes rise, so does the average skill level of the players sitting there. You want to be one of the best at the table, not the fish who sits down with sharks. If you’re making stacks of money at a lower level game, why move? You’re winning stacks of money. The swings up & down at higher limits are much bigger, and one big night’s win won’t last long at a high-stakes game.
The mathematical game of poker is something that anyone can learn and understand if they take the time to learn the theory and study the numbers. no matter how much of an instinct-type of player you are, you don’t want to be one of those players who are too lazy to learn how to understand when you have the best of it.
The math of poker is the grinder’s foundation from which he or she builds their game. The true poker player does not omit it from their game because their ego tells them they need not learn it.
This part of the game should not intimidate you. The math isn’t hard calculus. It’s just some basic ration and percentages that can become second nature after a while. Pot odds are simply the ratio of the size of the pot compared to the bet that has to be called. This has nothing to do with your cards. It only compares the amount of the bet to the amount of the pot into a ratio. If the pot has $60 in it and someone bets $10, then the pot odds are 6 to 1. If the pot is $160 and someone bets $40, the pot odds are 4 to 1. Learning to calculate the odds for every hand will take a little while to become second nature, but practice will certainly make it so.
Once you understand how to figure out the ratio, you have to convert that number into a percentage. This doesn’t take genius to understand. If your ratios is correct, all you have to do is add the two numbers together and divide the second number by the new combined number to get the percentage. 4 to 1 odds would be 4 + 1 = 5. Then 1 divided by 5 = .20, so your percentage is 20%.
If you’re in a drawing situation and you have to decide whether to stay in the hand for another card, you need to compare the pot odds against the odds that your hand has to win. Your hand has a winning percentage at every step of the hand. Your winning percentage for the draw will be determined by the amount of outs you need to hit the winning hand, or what you think will be the winning hand. You can learn what your winning percentage is by studying an “outs chart”, which displays all the percentages for each number of outs.
This theory must be flexible sometimes. In some situations, it may be required for a player to use implied odds instead of the actual odds to make the best decision. Implied odds are an estimate of how much the pot will be at the end of the betting round. If you have a middle position and there is a bet ahead of you, your decision to call or fold may require that you assume one or more opponents will also call the bet. This will change the ratio of your pot odds, making some negative chance situations change into positive ones, if in fact those other players remain in the hand.
once you can calculate and compare the two percentages, you can begin to make some of your decisions with this information in mind. If your pot odds are bigger than your draw odds, you are in a negative drawing situation. If it’s reversed, then you can call the bet. Math can make some difficult situations a little easier to decide upon when you find yourself in front of a tough call.
Playing too Many Hands
It’s important to be selective when playing poker. the old saying may go, “you can’t win if you don’t play,” but it’s also true that you can’t lose what you don’t put in the pot. Playing mediocre hands that lose most of the time when up against premium hands will destroy your chip stack. By playing too many hands, you’re tipping the odds in your opponent’s favor.
Playing Over your Head
If you’re really a beginner, play at a beginner table. Many rookies think they have the game down cold just because they watch the WPT on TV all the time and they clean up while playing their poker buddies in the basement. Start out small and if you dominate those levels, move up. it will save you lots of money if you play below your level instead of over it.
Too much Bluffing
This is another rookie symptom brought on by watching too much poker on TV. You’re not a poker pro yet, so don’t think you can act like one. Throwing in the occasional bluff is fine, but don’t fall in love with trying to dupe the table, or the players who know that they’re doing will fleece you.
Playing Distracted
If you’re going to
play poker then
play poker. Don’t listen to your favorite tunes while watching TV and catching up on some of that work you missed while slacking off at the office. If you’re not totally focused on the game, you’ll make that one big mistake that sucks you dry.
Falling in Love with your Hand
Rookies who get monster hands tend to play them out no matter what happens. When they do pull in a monster hand and it gets beat, that usually means a lot of chips just went to their opponent. Remember, no matter how good your hand is, it is beatable, so don’t be afraid to fold if you know you’re beat.
To play winning poker, you have to be able to determine what hands are playable on the board as soon as the cards come out. To be fair, it might not actually be important that you analyze the board in that split second, but you must be able to analyze it quickly enough that you won’t get burned by betting against a possible hand you missed. let’s do a quick test on reading the board: Qd, 10d, 4c, 8h
What is the best hand you can make on that board? The correct answer is, of course, a queen-high straight. To make that hand, you would have to have 9-J as your hold cards. Let’s add a river card and see how that changes things. The river card drops and the board now shows: Qd, 10d, 4c, 8h, Ad
Now what is the nuts? If you said ace-high flush you are partially right. Since the ace is on the board, the actual nuts is the ace-high flush with the king of diamonds in your hand. Since anyone who makes the flush would have the ace in their hand, the next-highest card would decide a winner between two flushes.
This example shows how one card can dramatically change the value of your hand. After the turn card fell, anyone holding the 9-J hand a great hand but once the diamond hit on the river, their once-powerful straight is vulnerable to anyone holding two diamonds. By reading the board and spotting this possible flush draw on the turn, a smart player would be able to protect their hand with a strong bet. Being able to read the board not only allows you to pick out the best hand, it also helps you make better-informed betting decisions.
