Poker strategy Way to win
The game we know as poker is believed to have ancient origins spanning nearly 1,000 years, spanning many continents and cultures. Some historians say that poker’s origins can be traced back to the game of dominoes played by a 10th-century Chinese emperor; others claim that he is a descendant of the Persian card game “As Nas”, which dates to the 16th century. The closest precursor to poker in Europe was Poque, which spread to France in the 17th century. Poque. and its German equivalent, pochen, are both based on a 16th-century Spanish elemental game in which three cards are dealt to each player and a bluff (or high bet on bad cards) is an important part of the game. French colonists brought Poque to their North American colonies, including New Orleans and the surrounding area, which became part of the United States through the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. English-speaking settlers in the area began playing Poque in poker and adopted features of modern play, including 5 cards per player and (in 1834) a 52-card deck .
Featured Casino
Play lesser hands and play them aggressively:
Even for the world’s best and experienced players, there is a threshold on how many starting hands you can play before the No-Limit Texas Hold’em flop. You will bleed away your chip stack if you try to play too many hands unless lazy luck is on your side.
Developing a strong preflop strategy is the fastest and easiest way to improve your bottom line, what is hard about this is that you need to have the discipline to stick to them. Do not get impatient and play a hand that is not worth playing.
The best approach is to play a small range of strong or playable hands and play them aggressively. Aggressively playing with your hands allows you to disguise the strength of your actual hand and harder for people to see through them.
Your opponents will not be able to guess your hand when you raise and thus making you a super tough player to play against.
Don’t be the first player to limp:
Just calling the big blind preflop also known as Limping is an absolute no-no as the first player to enter the pot. 2 main reasons why this should be avoided at all costs:
- You won’t be able to win the pot before the flop like you can if you raised.
- You enable players behind enticing pot odds, thus making it likely that you face multiple players and fewer chances of you winning.
The only time where this is considered acceptable is when at least 1 other player has limped already. This is known as over-limping and it might be a good play because you will be getting great pot odds to join in the action so hopefully you can hit something good on the flop.
Semi-bluffs aggressively with your draws:
If you want to master poker, you will need to effectively bluff. However, bluffing ineffectively is the fastest way to lose at the table.
The most effective way to bluff is to allow your hands to dictate if you are going to bluff or not. Meaning bluffing with hands that have outs to improve your hands on a later street, such as flush draws, straight draws or 2 to the board or even just an overcard.
Bluffing with nothing before the river is not advisable when you are just starting.
Fast play your strong hands to build the pot and make more money:
It is sad to see when a player checks their flopped nut flush 3 times and then has to show their strong hand when their opponent checks back the river. Slow playing often is a common mistake among players who are afraid of chasing their opponents when they have strong hands.
In most situations, it is best to protect your equity and bet your strong hands to build the pot. Not implying that you must always bet or raise post-flop. You should check if it’s unlikely that you will be outdrawn or there are not many scare cards to prevent you from winning or your opponents’ range are heavily weighted toward hands with no showdown value.
If you feel unsure, just bet or check-raise if you weren’t the preflop aggressor. It will be disappointing when your opponent folds but that’s not as disappointing as missing out on potential value or getting outdrawn.
Defend your big blind with the right hands:
The big blind is a special position because you have already invested 1 big blind to the pot, you can think of it as a discount when you are faced with a raise while sitting in the big blind.
You can profitably call with many more hands as compared to sitting in another position because you are the last person to act pre-flop and the discount. In most situations, borderline hands like K♣ 9♦ and Q♥ 6♥ become playable and not call raises with hands not worth playing like 9♠ 5♦.
There are several factors on how you should defend, here are 4 primary ones:
- Position of the raiser.
- Number of players in the hand.
- The size of the raise.
- Stack sizes.
Other important factors like how frequent your opponents will continue to bet post-flop, but the ones mentioned above are the main ones worth considering.
Fold when you are unsure:
The biggest difference between a professional and a bad player is the ability to let go of a good hand like having a top pair when they think it is not worth it.
This might sound simple, but it is hard to do partly because of how our brains work. We naturally want to win and are curious. Our chances to win the pot disappears when we fold, and we can’t satisfy our natural curiosity by finding out what our opponent hand is.
Calling in wrong situations too frequently is another way to lose money after ineffective bluffs. When you are unsure to call or fold against a bet or raise, it is best to fold.
Studying these types of hands after you fold in these situations is a good way to improve yourself.
Attack your opponent when they show weakness:
Players normally do not check when they have a good hand and can call multiple bets. This means when they check, they normally have a weak hand that will fold if faced with multiple bets. This is known as the “bluffing with nothing”.
Noticing an opponent’s weakness like checking on the flop and the turn in a heads-up pot is when you take advantage with an aggressive bluffing strategy. You should use the pure bluff with nothing hands as well as your usual semi-bluffs.
Play solid poker early in tournaments and don’t worry about survival:
One of the most misunderstood aspects of tournament poker strategy is stack preservation at the beginning of poker tournaments.
You are normally going to have to at least double or triple your starting stack, usually more, to finish in the money. You should be playing aggressive and solid poker early to build a stack for the long run instead of playing defensively.
Only start using a survival-oriented play style when you find yourself short stacked.
Only play if you feel like it:
Regardless of if you’re playing poker as a hobby or as a professional player, it should be a fun experience. You are more likely to perform better when you are happy, thus only play this mentally intensive game when you feel like it.
You should quit the session when you feel tired, frustrated, or angry. You are likely to save yourself a sum of money this way.
Only play in good games:
If you want to win at poker, you need to go against weaker players.
If you are the 9th best player in the world, you will be the best player at almost any table. However, if you play against the 8 better players, you become the weakest link.
You should always try to be in a position where you have the largest chance to win. That is why it is important to leave ego out of the table when playing poker.
The bottom line is that you generally need to go against at least half of the players at the table that are weaker than you if you want to have a positive win rate. If you want to have the best win rate, you should go against the worst players that you can find.
3 factors that will make a good poker game will be:
At least one player is limping frequently.
Many multiway pots.
Re-raises are very frequent or very rare.
You are in a good positive to make money with at least 2 of these factors checked. However, if playing without any of these factors, leave and find a more profitable table, unless you want to put your poker strategy to a test.
Take advantage of the table stats provided by most poke sites if you are playing online. Choose a table with a high percentage of players seeing a flop and a high average pot size. This is key to the online poker strategy that new players normally miss.
