The Best Poker Tips To Win

Poker isn’t a terribly hard-to-grasp game. Learning the basic rules is simple enough (the highest hand wins, of course) and you can simply pick up and start playing the game in minutes once you’ve learned basic poker rules. To be fair, that’s the easiest part about poker. To be a true master of poker, you’ll need finesse, skill, and most importantly, strategy — all of which can take a lifetime to be adept at.

Thankfully, the strategy part can be adopted as a beginner well in advance before you step foot into the hallowed realms of a pure poker savant. That’s also where we come in.

For newer players, it’s vital to maintain a balance between fun and excitement when they’re just starting out. You wouldn’t want to rack up hefty losses quickly in the beginning, would you? Nor would you want the games to be a drag each and every round with you using the same strategy over and over again ad infinitum.

So how do you start your journey to be the next, great poker star? Here are a few poker strategies and tips that will surely help in getting you up and running.

1. Be Aggressive

Contrary to the belief that beginners should take it slow at the start, poker is a game that demands timed, focused aggression. And as you begin to grasp the concepts and card combinations of the game, you’ll quickly learn that you need to amp up the aggression at the table in order to succeed.

Plenty of newbie players are wary or are too cautious about making their first bet. They will second and third-guess themselves on when they should raise or when they should call. You should definitely adopt a more aggressive playstyle than you would normally.

The reasoning here is that, in a full table, you’ll need to push the players with weaker holdings out quickly — either by forcing them to raise or making them fold. Yes, it’s the concept of the last man standing in poker. From another perspective, your odds of winning are only about 17% with a full table and with only two in the pot, your chances shoot up to 50%!

But the worst part about playing overly cautious is that you tag yourself as a weaker player to the rest of the table. If you barely place any bets or raise or make calls, you’ll find that you will be the one who will be forced out by the other players over time.

When you bet big in poker, the rest of the table will understand that you hold a strong hand or at least be threatened by a perceived strong hand — whether you’re playing a bluff or not.

Do remember that aggression pays off in poker. If you have confidence in your hand, the best move that you can do is to milk the table for all that you can get.

2. At The Same Time, Be Patient

Don’t get it misconstrued, being aggressive doesn’t mean that you should constantly be nose-diving into high-risk plays either. Playing aggressively is one thing but throwing your chips away on bad hands in the hopes of catching the one card that you need is just foolhardy. This is a surefire way to quickly reduce your chip stack to ashes.

Instead, one of the most basic poker tips that you should keep in mind is to fold more hands than you play. As we said, aggression pays but you’ll want to keep your aggressive plays focused for when it really matters.

And if you feel that this is a boring way to play poker that goes against the spirit of the game, here are a few tips to raise your patience levels:

Remember, the law of averages states that most of the time, the hands being dealt will not be winning hands.
Don’t be afraid to fold immediately, especially if you don’t have a strong position in the game.
If you fold, use the time to observe the other players and take note of how they play the game.
Once you’re free from the burden of losing the round after folding, you can then focus more closely on everyone else and their playstyles.
Wait patiently for the most opportune moment to turn the aggression on and go after the pot.

3. Keep Ranges In Mind And Not The Hand

One key difference between a beginner and an advanced player is to look at how they predict their opponent’s hands. Beginners tend to try and visualise exactly what the other players’ hands are — right down to the specific card. On the other hand, well-experienced players have game plans revolving around ranges. This type of mindset is vital in order to properly calculate the pot odds.

Specifically, a range here refers to the possible spectrum of hands that a player can have in a particular situation. For instance, good players will take note of how many cards are in play, as well as the potential hands that each other player may have depending on the cards left in the deck. Great players will also avoid focusing on a single winning hand and instead, focus on identifying the frequencies in which a particular hand will appear.

On the flip side, average players tend to try to predict exactly what specific hand an opponent has because that’s what their instinct tells them. This is a big no-no in poker. While luck plays some part in succeeding in poker, basing your strategy on what you “feel” is never a good idea. Instead, a consistent strategy and rational thinking are what you’ll need to excel in poker.

4. Think Long Term

There’s really no way to sugarcoat the truth — as a novice player, you ARE going to lose in poker most of the time.

The important takeaway here is to not let these losses wreck your psyche and cause you to be discouraged. Even top players go on bad streaks from time to time and your luck will flip for the better eventually.

Learning to succeed and win at poker is not just about luck though. You’ll need to commit hours and play thousands upon thousands of hands in a real game setting in order to firmly grasp the basics of the game. And it’s going to take many more hours and many more thousands of hands to be able to declare yourself an expert.

As you are developing your poker skills, do keep the first three tips in mind: be aggressive when appropriate, be patient when needed, and predict ranges not hands.

This trio of tips will help keep you grounded and help to stave off the urge to get “tilted” by a potential bad streak of unlucky hands. Most importantly, don’t try to make up losses by thinking you’ll “break-even” with the next hand. This mindset is a slippery slope and should be avoided at all costs — lest you fall deeper into the chasm of defeat.

Instead, we highly recommend that you set a bankroll (for every session and over the long term) and stick to it religiously.

5. Take Care of Your Mental Game

While poker isn’t necessarily a physically strenuous game, it can place a heavy burden on your mental capacity especially if you play for long periods of time. That’s exactly the reason you need to pay close attention to the mental aspect of poker.

From keeping track of the cards to trying to control your emotions to predicting the hands that the other players may potentially have to calling players’ bluffs, your brain is working more than you think in any given poker session.

Inevitably, your mind will falter and you will experience the frustration of making bad calls, which if left unchecked can lead you to tilt and cause you to lose more games in the long run. In this case, the best thing you can do is get up and leave the table — regardless if you’re in a winning position or are experiencing a losing streak.

Thereafter, you’ll need to cleanse your mind and develop a positive mentality, especially towards losses. It sounds easy on paper but you’d be surprised at the number of professional poker players that have decades of playing experience under their belt but still suffer from the mental side of the game.

Our advice to you is to avoid neglecting your mental health as you learn the game and gain more experience. And if you do, you could easily fall victim to a warped mind that can affect your decision-making — which invariably will be detrimental to your success in poker.

Set yourself up for success today with our poker tips. Don’t believe us? The best way is to put our tips into practice and see the results for yourself. If you plan on playing poker, we suggest you check out Play88, a trusted online casino, for its many member benefits and rewarding bonuses. Sign up today and get MYR2,000 as a welcome bonus from Play88!