Poker Strategies and Tips
Poker is a game of careful calculation, patience and a lot of probability. If you are looking for quick poker game tips, then this article will help you win at No-Limit Hold’em. We have compiled top 10 poker strategies and tips that will make you more confident poker player.
Top 10 Poker Strategies
10 best poker strategies and tips are:
- Play fewer hands, but play them aggressively
- Don’t be the first player to limp
- Go for ‘Semi-Bluffs’ aggressively with your draws
- Fast-play your strong hands to build the pot
- Fold if unsure
- Defend your big blinds if you have the right hand
- Play solid poker early in tournaments
- Attack aggressively if the opponent shows weakness
- Only play in good games
- Only play if you feel like it
Tip #1: Play fewer hands, but play them aggressively
There is a limit on how many starting hands you can play before the flop in No-Limit Texas Hold’em game, even for the world’s best players. If you try to play too many poker hands, you’ll bleed away your chip stack. Developing a solid preflop poker strategy is by far the easiest and fastest way to improve your bottom line. However, while developing solid preflop ranges is relatively easy to do, having the discipline to stick to them is difficult. Don’t allow yourself to get impatient and play a hand not worth playing. The best approach is to play a tight range of strong and/or playable hands, and you need to play those hands aggressively. Playing all of your hands aggressively, including the more speculative ones like 7♠ 6♠ or 5♥ 5♣, allows you to disguise the strength of your actual hand.
Tip #2: Don’t be the first player to limp
Limping (just calling the big blind preflop) is an absolute no-no as the first player to enter a pot. There are two main reasons why this play should be avoided:
- You can’t win the pot before the flop like you could if you raised it.
- You give the players behind very enticing pot odds, making it more likely you face multiple players and thus less likely you win the pot.
The only acceptable situation in which to limp is when at least one other player has already limped. This is called over-limping, and it can be a good play because you are getting great pot odds to join the action so you can hit something good on the flop, hopefully.
Tip #3: Go for ‘Semi-Bluffs’ aggressively with your draws
If you want to truly crush poker, you need to bluff effectively. But bluffing ineffectively is one of the fastest ways to lose your money at the table. So, how do you keep your bluffing frequency under control? The most effective way to bluff is to let the cards you have dictate if you are going to bluff or not. This means bluffing with hands that have outs to improve to the best hand on a later street, such as straight draws, flush draws, or even just an overcard or two to the board. Think of these draws as your backup plan in case your bluff gets called.
Tip #4: Fast-play your strong hands to build the pot
In most cases, it’s best to bet your strong hands to build the pot and protect your equity. That’s not to say you should always bet/raise your strong hands post-flop. You can check your strong hands if:
- It’s unlikely that you will be outdrawn.
- There aren’t many scare cards to prevent you from getting paid on later streets.
- Your opponent’s range is heavily weighted toward hands with no showdown value.
However, when you feel uncertain, just bet (or check-raise if you weren’t the preflop aggressor). Yes, it’s disappointing when your opponent folds, but that’s not nearly as disappointing as getting outdrawn or missing out on potential value.
Also Read: Poker Hierarchy of Hands
Tip #5: Fold if unsure
Want to know the biggest difference between a bad player and a professional player? It’s the good player’s ability to lay down a good hand like the top pair when they think they are beaten. This sounds very simple, but it is very hard to do in practice partly because of the way our brains are built. We are naturally curious and we naturally want to win. When we fold, we surrender our chance to win the pot and we don’t get to satisfy our curiosity by finding out what our opponent has. Calling too often and in the wrong situations is the second fastest way to lose at poker (after ineffective bluffs). Whenever you’re unsure whether to call or fold versus a bet or raise, do yourself a service and fold.
Tip #6: Defend your big blinds if you have the right hand
The big blinds in Poker is a special position because you already have 1 big blind invested in the pot. For this reason, whenever you are faced with a raise while sitting in the big blind, you will have better pot odds to call than the other positions – think of it as a discount. Because of your discount and the fact that you are the last person to act preflop, you can profitably call with many more hands than if you were sitting in another position. That’s not to say you should call raises with trash hands like 9♠ 5♦, but the more borderline hands like K♣ 9♦ and Q♥ 6♥ become playable in most situations. Exactly how wide you should defend depends on a multitude of factors – here are the four primary ones:
- Position of the raiser (play tighter against the early positions and looser against the late positions).
- The number of players in the hand (when 1 or more players have already called the raise, play tighter and only call with hands that do well in multiway pots).
- The size of the raise (the larger the bet sizing, the tighter you should play and vice versa).
- Stack sizes (when short-stacked, play fewer speculative hands and prioritize high card strength).
Tip #7: Play solid poker early in tournaments
There’s a time and a place for stack preservation, and the beginning of poker tournaments isn’t it. This is one of the most misunderstood aspects of tournament poker strategy. Consider that in order to finish in the money, you’re going to have to at least double or triple your starting stack (usually more). Instead of playing defensively, you should be playing solid and aggressive poker early on in order to build up a stack for a deep run. If you find yourself short-stacked and near the money bubble or a pay jump, only then should you start using a more survival-oriented playing style.
Tip #8: Attack aggressively if the opponent shows weakness
Players don’t check with hands that can call multiple bets as often as they should. This means that, when they do check, they usually have a relatively weak hand that will often fold if faced with multiple bets. This is the “bluffing with nothing” situation alluded to earlier. When your opponent shows a lot of weakness in a heads-up pot (like if they check on the flop and the turn), you can take advantage of them with an aggressive bluffing strategy.
Tip #9: Only play in good games
You should always put yourself in positions where your chance to win is the largest. This is why it’s important to leave your ego at the door when playing poker. Bottom line is that you generally need to be better than half the players at the table if you want to have a positive win rate. And if you want to make a sick-good profit, you want to play against the worst players you can find. Here is a checklist for a good poker game:
- At least one player is limping regularly.
- There are many multiway pots.
- Re-raises are either very rare or very frequent.
Tip #10: Only play if you feel like it
Poker should be a fun experience, regardless if you are playing as a hobby or if you are a professional player. You’re going to perform best when you are happy, so it makes sense that you should only play this mentally intensive game when you feel that way.
If you feel frustration, fatigue, or anger building up while playing the poker game, you should just quit the session right then and there. You are very likely saving yourself a bunch of money by doing so. The poker game will still be there tomorrow.
Conclusion:
In poker, strong strategy matters by knowing when to bet, bluff, fold and understanding the opponent’s gameplay. Poker is a game about playing wisely and staying unpredictable to win the game.
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