Poker Tactics

Our main goal is to introduce you to trustworthy poker sites, but we also want you to win as much money playing poker as possible. Our team has experienced and successful poker gambling writers who know the basics of winning poker strategies.

In addition to explaining some of the most important poker tactics and concepts, we have reviewed poker training sites and recommend you to try some of them out. Make an effort and your poker game will improve, allowing you to make money online.

Poker strategy is a set of choices that describes players' actions in poker. It outlines a plan to maximize the profit in a poker game. The characteristics of poker strategies are influenced by game-theoretic properties of poker, such as imperfect information and the element of chance. The mental game of poker is a whole beast of its own but basic mind game tactics can be segregated into three main categories: Offensive – This can refer to playing around the fact that you have a good hand or purposely tilting an opponent.

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Basic Strategies to Help You Win

Your journey towards becoming a great poker player start by reading reading these articles:

• Poker Odds [Read time: 5 Minutes]
• Expected Value [Read time: 4 Minutes]

• Hand Ranges [Read time: 4 Minutes]

A Game of Endless Decisions

Poker is a game of endless decisions. The goal of each decision should be to win as much as possible, whether it happens by maximizing winnings or minimizing losses. Either way, the goal should be to make as much money as possible.

Which poker decision is correct depends on an infinite amount of variables. No rules on ”how to play hand type X” and much less about “how to win at poker every time” are written in stone. Anyone implying certain types of poker hands should only be played in a certain way is likely below average at poker. The reason you can only find little hand analysis at TrustedPokerSites.com is because most situations depend on so many details that it makes analyzing “general” hands almost useless. For example, whether you should call an all-in with AQ-offsuit depends on the game type, player history, positions, tilt factors, playing styles, reads and a bunch of other factors.

Great poker player vs. Average poker players

What separates great poker players from others is mainly their ability to make great, creative decisions all the time. They don’t play on ”auto-pilot” and never practice ”fit-or-fold” poker (meaning either you hit a good hand or automatically fold).

It’s never healthy for your bankroll to base poker tactics or strategic decisions on, for example, what a starting hand chart tells you to do. Starting hand charts encourage you not to think through your decisions but rather blindly follow someone else’s advice. Following one essentially makes you a poker bot (actually, worse than a bot since as a human being you’re prone to mistakes).

Your opponents

As far as our opponents go, we want to force them to make bad decisions. And what usually leads to bad decisions? Tough situations. Put an opponent in a tough, challenging situation and most of the time he’ll make a mistake. Poker is all about decisions, and the more difficult the decision, the harder it is to make the right one.

Still, you should never run away from difficult decisions. Realistically, you can never win any decent money at poker unless you learn to come out on top in challenging situations. Difficult situations make all the difference between winning and losing (or winning something and winning big). Learning to deal with them allows you to master poker which – again – is a game of decisions.

Always Think

The main difference between winners and losers in poker is thinking. Sounds painfully obvious but stay with me: Losing players rarely think at all. In fact, I’m not trying to teach you how to ”think like a poker player” – just think in each situation and you’ll be ahead of your competition.

Recreational players often have a backward strategy to winning at poker: they determine ”what” before ”why” and ”how”. They might decide to call or bet without thinking about why to call or how to bet. Most of the time, great players are ahead of their competition before the actual game even begins. That comes from thinking which games one can make the most profit from or which seat to take. If you don’t have a reason for choosing a certain way to play, you need to think about the situation until you can think of the optimal way to play it.

Long-Term Success

On one hand, poker is all about results. The more money you make, the better you’ve done. The most successful poker player in the world has made the most money playing poker. That player likely knows poker strategy – not just in-game strategy, but game selection as well – better than anyone else in the world.

Phil Ivey

Only long-term success matters. Temporary winnings and losses mean almost nothing in the big picture. Having a losing day tells us nothing about your chances of succeeding in the long run. For example, Phil Ivey – who’s considered one of the best all-around poker players by many of his peers – could lose $500,000 on any given day while some clueless beginner wins $50. Clueless beginner’s day was $500,050 better than Ivey’s, but long-term, Ivey is lightyears ahead of him.

You need to learn how to analyze your poker results in a sensible way in order to determine whether you’re doing the right thing or not. It isn’t useful to determine whether you played well or not based on the result of a single poker session… or even 100 poker sessions. One of the most common mistakes beginners tend to make is to look at results of a couple of poker sessions and based on those determine where they stand in the poker world. Not how poker works.

Poker is a tricky game in many ways. Interpreting results is just one aspect – for example, you track your success by looking at outcomes, but really it’s the decisions that matter. You should focus on results, but then again you shouldn’t focus on them. A good outcome isn’t necessarily preceded by a good decision; a bad outcome isn’t necessarily preceded by a poor decision. The challenge is to study and figure out the best ways to act in different situations.

If you have the right strategy and tactics, good results will eventually follow.

Table Of Contents

Are you struggling to turn a decent profit at the poker tables on a consistent basis? Are your results best described as 'somewhere around break-even'?

First off, don't worry because you are not alone. This describes the results of the majority of poker players.

Often, however, it is just a few small poker strategy adjustments that can take your game from mediocre to amazing — from break-even to crushing it.

In this article, I am going to provide you with seven subtle but highly effective poker tips to take your game to the next level.

While I can't promise you'll win a lot of money with these beginner tips, you should add everything you find on this guide to your poker strategy if you really want to improve your poker games.

Continue reading to discover poker tips like:

I've also added something about pocket aces because you should be always careful when you get them. I have seen so many people play them the wrong way...

1. Think About Ranges, Not Hands

It doesn't matter what type of casino poker you play: one of the easiest ways to spot average and beginner poker players is to look at how they think about what their opponent has.

• Beginner poker players try and put somebody on a specific poker hand.
• Advanced poker players think in terms of ranges. This type of thinking that can be extremely important when calculating pot odds.

A range is the entire spectrum of poker hands somebody can have in a specific situation. For example, player X can have a flush, top pair, middle pair, bottom pair, a draw, ace-high or a complete air-ball bluff.

Good players who have already gone through a few poker strategy articles understand that player X will show up with this entire range of hands with various frequencies. They don't focus on identifying a single winning hand, but they try and figure out those frequencies and then make the best play.

Average players try to put an opponent on exactly (or some other specific hand) because that's 'what their gut tells them.'

If there's one thing you need to know when you learn the game, this is that poker strategy tips and 'gut feeling' don't go well together. Basing your tournament strategy or cash game play on what you 'feel' is never a good idea.

In the first video of this beginner's guide to poker tips for beginners, poker pro Jason Wheeler explains how uses every possible information available to understand his opponent's cards and choose his play.

Poker Tip Key Takeaway: Be Realistic

Don't put your opponent on a single hand but think about ranges. Nobody has a specific hand in poker — they only have a range.

If you are in still the process of learning the game and you need some help, have a look at the complete poker hands ranking.

2. Ditch Your Favorite Hand

A lot of people have a favourite hand. I know that every time I get dealt the old -suited my eyes light up and I want to play it so bad!

However, in reality, I know that -suited is a mediocre hand. Definitely not one of the best starting hands you can hey in a game of Texas hold em.

Calculate your poker odds FOR FREE with the PokerNews pot odds calculator!

It makes sense to play it in some spots — late position, for instance, in an unopened pot. But it should almost always be folded in early position.

If you currently have some favourite starting hands, that's fine — most people do. But don't give them preferential treatment and make bad plays with it.

Winning poker is about math and cold hard logic, not superstition.

Poker Tip Key Takeaway: Be Smart

Playing too many hands is a widespread mistake (see: Five Common Mistakes New Poker Players Make).

One of the best ways to avoid it is to introduce range-based thinking in your reads.

3. Adopt a Consistent Strategy

Another big key to becoming a great poker player (and perhaps one of the most important poker tips on this strategy guide) is to consistently apply a winning strategy.

It is not okay suddenly to change things up (e.g. to open with -suited from early position or turn yourself into a calling station) just because you are bored or tilted.

All of your learning, experience and study over the years has given you a body of knowledge telling you how to play Texas Hold 'Em.

But your poker strategy only actually matters if you apply it at the poker tables all the time. Every hand counts and every session counts.

The best poker players, those ones who know how to win at poker, apply the same winning strategy over and over again, no matter how they feel or what their recent results have been.

Poker Tip Key Takeaway: Be Consistent

Poker is a long-term game. You need time to build your bankroll and find the right cash game or poker tournament strategy that works for you.

You should not change your strategy after a big win or a big loss (here's why).

If you really feel like your approach needs to change, make sure you read this article on Handling the Ups and Downs of Low Stakes Poker first.

4. Always Have a Reason

Big-time winning poker players will sometimes break from their standard, successful strategies, but always for obvious reasons.

An average player might start raising -suited in early position because he is bored or wants to make something happen.

An elite poker player will raise with this hand in this position on occasion because he notices the table is playing passively and there are a couple of recreational players in the blinds.

There is a clear reason then to believe that raising -suited in early position (typically a fold under normal circumstances) might be a profitable play in this situation.

If you can produce a well-reasoned argument why deviating from your regular strategy might be more profitable, then it is okay. It is the 'because I feel like it' or 'I am bored' reasoning that has to go.

Poker Tip Key Takeaway: Be Reasonable

Think. Use your experience to analyse the situations, and then understand 'why' you would take one road and not another.

If you don't have enough experience to evaluate different situations yet, you better go back to the free games and grind.

5. Know When to Fold Your Aces

Another clear difference between average poker players and great poker players is the ability to fold an overpair.

Do you know that little sick feeling you get when you have and a tight opponent raises all-in on the turn? You make the so-called 'crying call', and he turns over the set yet again.

Playing online poker for free is the best way to hone your poker skills and practice with no risk.

You need to start paying attention to that feeling a little bit more often.

Poker Tips And Tricks

Certain patterns are easily recognizable at the lower stakes — especially when you play online poker — where it is 100 per cent the correct play to fold your overpair.

Good players can let go of any emotional attachment to their pretty-looking hands. Average players get married to their aces or kings instead, and can't let them go even when they know they are beat.

Poker Tip Key Takeaway: Aces Lose Too

Starting with the best of all poker hands isn't enough to guarantee you a winning hand.

Ask anyone for good poker pro tip, and they will all tell you the same thing: sometimes, you'll need to fold those Aces.

For more info on this specific topic, have a look at this article on How to Play Pocket Aces.

6. Realize Tilt Only Hurts You

Tilt is a destroyer of bankrolls, dreams, and poker careers.

I can't tell you how often I receive emails or comments from people who describe to me how they've tilted vast amounts of their bankroll away when things went badly at the poker tables.

The reality of poker is that sometimes things will go badly for you, and there is absolutely nothing that you can do about it.

This is what you sign up for every time you sit down to play card games.

There's always the possibility you might run terribly. You might run lights out as well, though.

When you allow yourself to lose control of your emotions and throw your strategy out the window, the only person you are hurting is yourself.

All those hours you've spent trying to learn and improve your game were basically wasted because you decided to choose your emotions over reason when it mattered.

Online Poker Tactics

Respect the work that you have done. You owe it to yourself to maintain more composure and stop throwing away money when the cards go south.

Poker Tip Key Takeaway: Relax

The psychological side of poker can be overwhelming, and you need to be ready to deal with it.

Swings happen and bad beats will come. If you don't know how do deal with this, have a look at the poker tips Italy's poker pro Rocco Palumbo shared with PokerNews at the PokerStars Championship in Prague.

If these poker tips work for Palumbo, they may as well work for you!

7. Don't Play Bad Games

One more way beginner poker players can sabotage their poker results is by stubbornly playing in games that are full of decent-to-good regulars.

If you can't find somebody at the table who is playing very poorly, then you have to ask yourself why it is that you are even there.

If you only play poker for the mental challenge or recreation or pleasure, then this is fine. This poker tip doesn't necessarily apply to you.

Use this guide to set up your next home game online and play online poker with your friends for free or real money.

But if winning real money or chips is at all a priority for you, then you need to remember you don't turn a significant profit in poker by pushing tiny edges against good poker players.

You win big by playing against players who are making significant fundamental errors and giving away their money over the long term.

As the classic movie Rounders reminds us, 'If you can't spot the sucker in your first half-hour at the table, then you are the sucker.'

Poker Tip Key Takeaway: Choose the Right Games

Don't sit with the pros if you can't beat them. Selecting the right games is key to your successes in poker — one wrong move, and you are out.

Again, there's no shame in playing free poker games or in looking for the best freeroll poker tournaments to play online if that's what you need.

Final Thoughts

The divide between break-even beginner players and big-time winners is not as wide as many people think.

It is often just a few simple little adjustments you can learn over time that can carry you over to enable you to start winning at a higher clip.

A lot of it has to do with starting to view the game in a much more cold, detached, mathematical, and logical way than you presently do.

Poker Tactics Crossword Clue

Emotional and/or superstitious poker players almost always lose or struggle to remain even.

Elite poker players, meanwhile, know they are in it for the long haul and don't get overly wrapped up in each hand or moment. They continue to make the most profitable play again and again, no matter what.

Playing online poker for free is the best way to hone your poker skills and practice with no risk.

Nathan 'BlackRain79' Williams is the author of the popular micro stakes strategy books Crushing the Microstakes and Modern Small Stakes. He also blogs regularly about all things related to the micros over at www.blackrain79.com.

Video Poker Tactics

_{This article was originally published on Feb. 13, 2017. Last update: Oct. 12, 2020.}

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