Do you play poker and find you need some new strategies? Perhaps you are new to poker and want to pick up some tips and tricks that could help you along the way? Or maybe you just want some new strategies to refresh your game? Whatever your reason might be, we have the answer for you!
Whether you are playing at a casino or playing poker online, we know how important a good strategy is. It can make or break our game for many of us and help us win big at the table! But finding a strategy that works for us can be challenging and leaves many of us stressed about upcoming poker games or feeling like we are set up for failure.
Well, no more! Today we have the best poker strategies you need to know! Keep reading to find a new strategy that will enhance your game and allow your confidence to grow when playing poker.
Poker strategies you need to know
Before we get into these strategies, it’s worth pointing out that there’s no guarantee you will win. Sure, a strategy gives you a higher chance of winning, but it’s only as good as the cards in your hand. You will get more confidence, and you should notice an improvement in your poker playing abilities.
Before using any of these strategies, we recommend familiarizing yourself with the rules and lingo. Understanding how the game works and the phrases used will help you implement these strategies and save some confusion when playing poker! Let’s look at some of the strategies you can use in poker!
- Play aggressively with fewer hands
There’s a limit to how many starting hands you can play before the flop, even for the best players. Playing too many hands will bleed away your chip stack unless you are very lucky. So to combat this, you need to develop a solid preflop poker strategy. It’s the fastest and easiest way to improve your bottom line too!
Although it can be easy to develop, sticking to it isn’t always easy! You need to remain patient at all times and avoid playing hands that aren’t worth playing. For best results, play a tight range of strong or playable hands and play them aggressively. If you play all your hands aggressively, more speculative ones, you can disguise the strength of your actual hands.
Then when you raise, your opponents won’t know if you have an A-A, A-K, or a 7-6, making you tough to play against. By staying tight and aggressive, you can win the game!
- Semi-bluff aggressively with draws
Bluffing effectively is the key to success in poker. But for it to work, it must be done correctly, or you will lose your money at the table, and quickly too! So to bluff effectively, you need to let the cards you have dictate whether you bluff or not. You will want to bluff with hands that have outs to improve to the best hand on a later street, like flush draws, straight draws, or even an overcard or two to the board.
Bluffing this way is known as a semi-bluff because the potential is beyond the bluff itself. Be sure to check out some other tutorials about semi-bluffing if you want more information about it!
For beginners, we do not recommend bluffing with total nothing hands before the river. In most situations, you should not do this.
- Don’t limp first
Limping, or calling the big blind pre-flop, should be avoided at all costs if you are the first player to enter a pot. There are two reasons why we should avoid this, listed below.
- You can’t win the pot before the flop, which you could if you raised it.
- You give the players behind enticing pot odds, making it more likely you will face multiple players, reducing the likelihood of you winning the pot.
So when can you limp? We recommend only limping once another player has already limped. We call this over-limping, and it is a good play to make. By doing this, you get great pot odds to join the action, enabling you to hit something good on the flop!
- Know when to fold
Knowing when to fold is an invaluable skill and sets apart the bad players from the professional players. Folding a good hand when you think you are beaten sounds simple in theory but can be hard to do in practice. Folding surrenders our chance to win the pot, and it can be hard to do this when you are playing or want to know what hand your opponent has.
Calling too soon and in the wrong situation is one of the fastest ways to lose poker. If you are unsure whether to call or fold or bet or raise, fold instead. It’s the best thing to do in these situations. Once you fold, make a note of the details of the hand. You can use these to work out if you made the right fold after your session. Making time to study or discuss these hands will help improve your skills or fill any gaps in your knowledge.
- Attack when you see weakness
Players don’t check with hands that can call multiple bets as often as they should, meaning that when they do check, there’s usually a weak hand that folds if faced with multiple bets. We call this bluffing with nothing, something we mentioned earlier.
If your opponent shows a lot of weakness in a heads-up pot, such as checking on the flop and the turn), take advantage of them! Use an aggressive bluffing strategy here, using semi-bluffs and pure bluffs to achieve a win here. You might feel a little anxious doing so when you first start playing poker, but as your confidence grows, these will become easier.
- Play only when you feel like it
Poker is meant to be fun, whether it’s a hobby or you are a professional player. You will notice that your best performances are when you are happy, so be sure to play only when you are in the right mindset.
If you are tired, frustrated, or angry, then quit the session there and then. By doing this, you are saving yourself some money and can play again the next day if you are feeling better!
Final word
And just like that, we have come to the end of our poker strategy guide today! As you can see, there are a few different strategies you can adopt while playing poker that will boost your confidence and aid your poker-playing game. And while you might not win every hand, you are sure to have a lot more fun playing poker if you adopt one or some of these strategies!
