If you’re starting out, or even if you’ve been playing a while but only in casual games, there comes a time in every Poker player’s life when they have to turn their attention to improving their strategy. But where to start? There’s so much bad advice, as well as tips that seem at face value to be incredibly complicated, but we’re going to give you some easy-to-understand tips that’ll see you winning big in no time.
Know When To Fold’em
Only the world’s best Poker players know it’s best to fold in the face of uncertainty, even if he or she has what could be a winning hand. This is how you survive in poker, and if your playstyle is in every other way aggressive, folding at the right time can actually make you appear more intimidating, leaving the winning player feeling as if you have an uncanny ‘sixth sense’.
In actual fact this apparent intuition simply comes from playing counter to human nature. People are curious and it’s this curiosity that leads them into traps, that kills the cat so to say. When you quell these feelings you end up playing winning hands with more frequency.
Only Play When You’re Better Than The Others
Poker is a competitive game, and the stakes are high. So why walk into a game where you’re going to be very quickly laid to waste by card sharks. Unless you have an enormous amount of disposable income, your goal should be to ambush unsuspecting novices.
Spot the sucker – weaker players aren’t good and disguising their weaknesses and if you know what you’re looking out for, you’ll spot a table of weak players a mile off. The opposite is also true – if you can’t spot the sucker, the sucker is probably you. So choose your games wisely.
Attack When The Weaker Player Is On The back Foot
If a player is limping often or is checking hands – it’s time to pounce. Start implementing an aggressive bluffing strategy, even bluffing with ‘nothing hands’ and soon you’ll see them start to crumble. Poker is a survival of the fittest game – especially in a tournament.
If you’re not the fittest, you should start targeting those weaker than you to stay in the game while you suss out the more established players and start coming up with strategies to counter theirs. Chances are if you’re pointing out the weaker players with aggressive plays, you’ll be left alone while those players take the fall.
Remember To Have Fun
This doesn’t seem like a strategic piece of advice at face value, but soon you’ll realise just how important this is. If you’re playing when you’re overworked, distracted or in any way unhappy, you’re going to lose. It takes a winning mindset to keep it together, and you need to be in good mental shape to take home the jackpot.
We hope this advice will stand you in good stead. Remember to keep practising and keep learning – you have a world of information at your fingertips!