Hold’em All: Poker tips for Improving your game

Learning a game of Poker takes a real interest and the ability to read the game as well. Poker is a very strategic game, and to win, you have to have some tough mental skills to overcome the pressure and beat your opponent mentally rather than play on luck. Here are some poker tips for you to learn how to come out on top against your friends or foes in a game:

Think about Ranges Not Hands – The first rule of playing any casino card game should always be to try and anticipate your opponent’s hands with the utmost accuracy. To do this, a player should not just focus on any single hand his/her opponent might have but should consider a range of hands that they can not get any surprises and have a strategy for every one of that hand. This is where amateur players are different from the advanced ones.

Ditch Your Favourite Hand – Almost all of the poker players have a favorite hand or a preferred hand, which they want to use as soon as they get them. We have to understand that if that particular hand of yours is not strong enough to start the round, you should either fold it or think of other hands possible as going for the preferred hand will not make you win games. This is why the game of Poker has to be played with pure logic.

Adopt a Consistent Strategy – This is one of the most important tips if you want to win games consistently in Poker. If you are finding success in a particular style or approach for the game, you should not change it and try to apply your poker skills consistently, even if you are bored or tilted. This will surely help you to understand your style more clearly and will make you win games consistently.

Always Have a Reason – The only exception to tip number 3, which tells you to try and be consistent, is that if you have a pretty valid reason for your change of strategy or if you think that a particular style will suit a particular game, then you should go with it. Deviation from a particular strategy shouldn’t come out of boredom or try new things.

Know When to Fold Your Aces – Another tip that can help differentiate an average player from a good one is that a good player always knows when to fold an overpair. They don’t get too attached to any good hands they get and fold them when they sense that they will lose the hand. Certain patterns are easily recognizable at the lower stakes, especially when you play online poker, where it is 100 percent the correct play to fold your overpair.

Semi-Bluff Aggressively with your draws – The major part of winning a poker game is bluffing, and if your bluff gets caught, it’s also the easiest way one can lose a hand. To be a good bluffer in the game is to let the cards you have dictate if you will 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. Poker players call these hands “semi-bluffs” because of their potential beyond the bluff itself. 

Attack when your Opponent shows Weakness – Another important tip is to assess your opponent’s weak hands as early as possible and then to play your strategy to the point. When your opponent shows a lot of weakness in a heads-up pot, for example, if they check on the flop and the turn, you can take advantage of them with an aggressive bluffing strategy. Not only should you bet with your usual semi-bluffs, but you should also bet as a pure bluff with some nothing hands.

Don’t Play Bad Games – Suppose you are really looking to start on a good run in Poker, then one of the things you have to make sure that you are not playing at a table with all good players who are better than you stubbornly. This will only lead to a lowering of morale and loss of confidence. However, if you are playing for pleasure, then you can surely have a go at them.

Defend your Big Blinds – With 1 big blind already invested in the pot, the big blind becomes a special position. 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. Exactly how wide you should defend your blind depends on a multitude of factors – here are the four primary ones:

1. Position of the raiser (play tighter against the early positions and looser against the late positions).

2. The number of players in hand (when 1 or more players has already called the raise, play tighter and only call with hands that do well in multiway pots).

3. The size of the raise (the larger the bet sizing, the tighter you should play and vice versa).

4. Stack sizes (when short-stacked, play fewer speculative hands and prioritize high card strength).

Written By
Shashwat Nishant