Are you struggling to win in poker? How can your results best be described: having a tendency to break even or something somewhere between these extremes? First of all, there is nothing to worry about because you are not alone. This is why most poker players go through the results indicated below. More often, just one or two adjustments here or there make the most significant shift in poker strategy — from just making money to beating the house to becoming one of them.

Here are top 10 tips used by professional poker players on how to play poker game, which may not be very obvious but work wonders.

Top 10 Tips by Professional Poker Players

1. Play fewer hands, but play them aggressively. 

Including for the most superior players, there is always a limit of starting hands they can use in No Limit Texas Hold’em before the flop. You will be slowly losing your chips in bets and the stacks you build by playing lots of hands will be slowly disassembled. The best way to increase your earnings, therefore, is to develop a solid preflop strategy that you can implement before the flop. That’s right because playing in a tight and aggressive manner is the way to win the game!

2. Do not be the first person to limp in

Limping into a pot merely just to call the big blind preflop, however, is utterly impermissible for the first player. There are two primary factors for why this play should not be attended:

  1. Calling has the disadvantage of preventing you from claiming the pot before the flop like you could with raising.
  2. You get more in the pot that you make it harder to win and attract many callers to the table and less likely to beat the pot.

Also read: Playing Wild Poker Players

3. When calling with marginal hole cards, be sure to come across as aggressive

To be a skilled poker player, you need to know how to bluff well. That means bluffing with the right hands at the correct frequencies. But this can very easily turn into a constant losing position at the table when one bluffs badly. Bluffing, therefore, should be done based on the cards which are available to any player. This entails bluffing opponents with a hand that could still develop into a better hand in the future such as a straight or a flush or holding high cards that could be developed.

4. The probability of you being outdrawn is rather low

You’d be hardly able to find such cards that would make you shiver and stop you from making money in the future. What your adversary shows a large part of the time are hands that have no merit at the showdown. That’s why when in doubt unless you are an experienced poker player, fold. Raising without knowing what your next move is; has led to the downfall of many poker stacks. 

When in doubt, analyze and assess. Poker is not so black and white. While folding against an opponent is never so great, it’s a lot less frustrating than being outdrawn or potentially missing on some value.

5. Protect your big blind

The big blind position is different in the sense that you have already committed 1 big blind for the pot. Also, if you’re in a big blind and facing a raise, you will have more favorable odds to call as you are getting a 1bb discount compared to other positions. 

How tight or wide you defend will depend on these factors. 

  1. Raiser’s placement
  2. Number of persons willing to participate in the game.
  3. If it was incremental, then the amount increases.
  4. Stack Sizes and average stack size 

Other important parameters to opt for are: your opponent’s continuation bet frequency after flop, apart from the three fundamental ones.

Also read: Sins Of Online Poker Player

6. When in doubt, just fold

Knowing when to get out, for instance when you have a made hand such as a top pair but you have read that you are in unfavorable ground, is equally important. Applying this may sound easy, but actually it is hard since our brain is so designed. Our brains are wired to seek reward and avoid loss, which often leads to impulsive decision-making, even when we logically know what the best choice should be. In poker, this is known as loss aversion—the fear of folding a hand and missing out on potential gains, even when the odds are not in our favor. If there is any doubt as to when you should call, or when you should just use a bet or a raise and fold it is best that you fold for your own good.

7. Attack when your enemy looks weak and or/has his defense down

Players do not often call with hands that can afford to run multiple bets as frequently as is required. This implies that, when they decide to check, they normally have a weak hand that they are willing to let go when faced with more than one bet.

You can bluff your opponent, especially in heads-up confrontations, if they seem vulnerable or overly passive. While semi-bluffs should be done with hands that have potential (such as drawing hands), you should avoid bluffing with zero equity hands, as these hands have no chance of improving. Bluffing is most effective when you still have some outs, even if your hand isn’t currently strong.

8. Try to play good poker in the early stages rather than just surviving.

Remember that just to finish with a cash prize, you have to double or even triple your basic stack. By adopting an aggressive style of how to play poker game at the early stages of the tournament, considerable amounts of chips are accumulated for exclusive tournament play.

The survival or positional strategy is appropriate only for the situation where you have few chips left and within a range of the money bubble, or a pay jump. For more information about this aspect of the tournaments that is so important it deserves a part on this site click here.

9. Play only if you feel like it.

If you are getting engaged with a poker sport for any given reason, it is suggested that it should be for fun or for any professional practice. When happy you are likely to perform to the optimum, thus enabling this mentally demanding game to only be played when in a happy disposition.

Should you feel frustrated, aggravated or even tired, then it is time to stop it immediately. By doing that, you are most likely cutting costs and probably saving a lot for yourself. Poker will remain available till the next day.

10. Game selection is of utmost importance.

It therefore becomes your duty to always set yourself in environments where opportunities for your success are most possible. Therefore, everyone should have the ability to let go of the ego when playing a poker game.

Therefore, the basic premise is quite simple: you must obtain positive expectations against a majority of the other players at the table. For them, if one wants to make a lot of money then you have to play against the worst players in the market.

Below are some tendencies that juicy poker tables where you can make a lot of money have. 

  1. One of the players is limping all the time.
  2. Many of the pots include multiple individuals.
  3. A re-raise is either a rarity or a norm.

You should immediately join it and keep playing as long as the players doing this are playing. If none of the tick boxes apply you get up immediately and find another table that has better pay.

Summary

While gambling on internet poker ensure that you use the table statistics provided on most poker websites. Choose an internet poker table characterized by a big average pot size and high percentage of players who see a flop. Inexperienced players particularly overlook these crucial online poker tactics on how to play poker game for successful gaming.