How to be a Winning Poker Player

Poker Strategy Tips

While many consider it a game of luck, it is, in fact, a game of strategy, patience, and mathematics where every tip matters. To be good, players need to have knowledge, be able to read the game, and play their hands right.

Even if it involves folding, going all in, and taking on the entire table, making the ideal strategic moves can help improve your game and turn you from a fish into a shark.

Here are some of the things you need to consider.

1. Select a Few Hands and Play Them Aggressively

Hand selection can’t be overstated. It always depends on the type of game you’re playing, but in most cases, you should be aggressive when you have a good hand. You have to play in a tight range and always be ready to re-raise to take players off weak hands and show you’re dominating them. The key is to make the most of your suited cards and pocket pair and exert pressure on your opponents. A win is a win; even if you win a two-blind pot, it’s better than losing a two-blind pot!

2. Avoid Being the First Player to Limp Into a Pot

At the right time, limping can be a powerful strategy, and you must make polarizing calls to get players off their game. When you’re the first to limp, in most cases, you’re giving off a vibe of a weak holding. This is because you’re out of position, and other players who have yet to act can 3-bet or go all in. A better decision is to raise or fold and only limp in some cases.

3. Employ Aggressive “Semi-Bluffing” with Your Drawing Hands

Semi-bluffing is a strategy that can lead to excellent results when used correctly or spun to indicate a strong hand. This strategy is wrongly used by new players who don’t know what to do when they don’t hit the “nuts.” Players must bet aggressively from the start to show they hold a strong hand to make this an effective strategy. Even if they don’t reach their desired goal when betting drawing hands, they can still turn their hands into a bluff and win the pot on the river. This strategy can be very effective because it gives you two ways to win: either your opponent’s fold or you hit your draw and have a strong hand.

4. Quickly Build the Pot and Maximize Earnings with Your Strong Hands

When you know you have a strong hand, the common misconception is to trap your opponents. However, the best strategy to implement then is to start betting big from the get-go and build the pot up even pre-flot. This means playing aggressively, betting more than 50% of the pot in order to scare your opponent and maximize your winnings when the showdown comes.

5. Protect Your Big Blind with Appropriate Hands

Having a strategy for your post-flop game is essential because you can defend and start playing out of position with the right hands. While a big blind is dead money, if you choose to fold, you can still defend the position with the right types of hands. It doesn’t mean playing every hand, but pocket pairs, connectors, and suited cards can be hard to read, especially from the big blind.

6. Choose to Fold When Uncertain About Your Hand

Profitable players are the ones who also know when to fold. Folding is actually more important than calling since it can get you out of uncomfortable situations. So, if you’re uncertain about how you weigh against your opponents or whether you have your read done correctly, it’s always better to fold than make a risky call. It’s also advisable to fold before there’s no turning back (even during the flop pre-flop)

7. Exploit Opponent Weaknesses by Attacking at the Right Time

To become a good player, you must develop skills that include playing the probabilities and making reads to the player. That’s a bit difficult in online play, but you can still use data to assess your actions. During live play, however, you can read your opponents’ habits and identify when they have a weak hand and bluffing. You might not always get it right, but you can take calculated risks to steal a pot using just a minimum raise.

8. Adopt a Solid Strategy in Early Tournament Stages (Focus on Skill, Not Just Survival)

The ways to win vary depending on the type of game you’re playing. In tournament play, it’s important to go through the stages but not only focus on survival. Instead, it would help if you opted to play correct poker, taking some risks in the early stages when there are a lot of blinds, and playing tight in the later stages of the game. Sure, getting in the money is important, but how you do it can dictate the course of your tournament.

9. Participate Only When You’re in the Right Frame of Mind

It is a game that requires concentration, patience, and emotional control. If you’re feeling tired, stressed, or emotionally upset, it’s often best to avoid playing. Your mental state can greatly affect your gameplay, and playing when you’re not in the right frame of mind can lead to poor decisions.

10 Engage in Games That Offer Favorable Conditions

The type of games you play can influence the outcome. For example, if you’re a pro and play a $1 tournament, you’ll likely get calls very often, so bluffing is not an option. Good online tips will tell you that you have to adapt your gameplay to match your audience. Most importantly, you have to feel comfortable playing for a specific amount to be within your skill level. Players often enter games with higher buy-ins just to be suffocated by better players. Playing games that make you feel comfortable leads to higher winning chances.

Factors to Keep in Mind

Using even half of these techniques can put you ahead of 99% of poker players. Implementing all of them will lead to consistent, long-term profits as a winning player!

1. Play, Analyze, Study, Repeat

Play, analyze, study, and repeat is the essential grind you must undertake for thousands of hours over multiple years to become a winner.

• There are no shortcuts, you have to have discipline and put in the work.
• The work is to play the game a lot, analyze your own and your opponent’s hand histories, and study the game.
• That is how to improve your profitability.

For analysis of online play use tracking software. For analysis of the live play, you have to diligently keep your own records with detailed notes.

For study; read poker-related books, listen to podcasts, participate in forums, watch training videos, and discuss the game with high-level players in real life and online.

2. Be Process-Oriented, Not Results-Oriented

Variance is a beast. You can do everything right, play optimally, get unlucky, and lose. You can also donk it up and win. However in the long run doing everything right and playing well will result in profit and donking will result in loss.

To develop and follow a process that will allow you to play well. Do not concentrate on short-term results.

3. Manage your Bankroll

Keep your playing roll separate from your life roll. Play at small enough stakes that your bankroll can withstand long downswings.

For playing online, this is roughly

• Heads up and sit & goes: 40 buyins
• Cash games: 100 buyins
• Multi-table tournaments: 150 buyins

For playing live, slightly less than above because results tend to be more consistent with less variance in comparison to playing online.

4. Hide Emotion

Don’t play on tilt. Limit all on-table emotions. If you get sucked out of the bubble or finish 2nd or whatever frustrating spot you find yourself in on the table, don’t make it emotional, don’t have an emotional response.

What you can do is analyze your play and study the game to make those things happen less often (but they will never be eliminated entirely).

5. Optimize Game and Table Selection

To improve your game you should challenge yourself by playing hard tables sometimes.

However, when it comes to maximizing your profitability as a working professional, you need to make the effort to find the easiest games possible with stake sizes that match your bankroll.

6. Try all Poker Variants, Not just Texas Holdem

Even if you mostly want to be a Holdem pro; learning other poker games will improve your play in general, deepen your understanding of the game, widen your earning potential, and add more fun and variety to your work.

The decision of which variants to try partly depends on which games have enough liquidity where you play, but you should be looking at

• Hold’em: No limit, fixed limit, and pot limit
• Pot limit Omaha: High/low, 5 cards, and 5 cards high/low
• Stud: Fixed limit
• Chinese: Pot limit
• Draw: Fixed limit
• Short Deck: No limit
• Mixed: HORSE, 8-Game, 11-Game and Lowball

7. Try Live and Online Poker

You don’t know which you are better at until you try both. If you want to be successful player, try both online and live play, as each can improve the other.

8. Try Heads Up Displays

Heads-up displays (HUDs) are software that show you and your opponents’ playing stats on the poker table. For example, this allows you to quickly see how aggressive or conservative opponents are without having to remember all their previous hands.

The vast majority of winning players use HUDs and they are bundled together with the best tracking software.

9. Try Poker Coaches

Many players use or have used coaches, you should at least try getting coached if you are serious about improving your play.

10. Be Mentally and Physically Healthy

Better mental and physical health leads to improved performance, while poor health results in worse performance. Thus, health is crucial for your career.

• Take breaks often; don’t grind so hard you burn out
• Don’t abuse substances
• Create and maintain deep and healthy relationships with people in real life
• Eat well and exercise