When it comes to playing poker — be it cash games, tournaments, or simply online poker among friends — you’ll definitely need to incorporate some sort of strategy to guide your poker hand to victory. To that end, the poker connoisseurs at EnergyCasino have got your back! Kickstart your journey to the top by keeping in mind the following poker tips.
1) FAST-PLAY AND TAKE THE POT AWAY
If you’ve ever been around a poker table, you definitely know that poker hands can be the very definition of a mixed bag. Amateur players tend to play loose, which refers to the practice of pursuing a very high range of hands until later streets, where they’ll mostly have to fold to stronger or better-played hands.
One of the most valuable poker tips you’ll ever come across is to play tight, which means being very selective about the hands you play. The truth is that not all hands are worth playing, especially considering the number of chips that a weak hand can flush down the drain. Playing fewer hands will not only preserve your chip stack, but it will also disguise your strong hands in the future.
How’s that? Well, here’s the thing. Once you learn to play tight — that is, folding relatively weak hands and only pursuing hands on the stronger side — you’ll want to play them aggressively. Doing so will render you unpredictable to opponents, since they’ll have no idea whether you’re sitting on a powerhouse of a hand or just air.
This is called semi-bluffing — the practice of playing a relatively promising hand very aggressively. If other players decide to call your ostensible bluff, they’ll be greeted with a formidable hand that can very easily topple their own! We’ll touch more on semi-bluffing at a later stage.
2) WHEN IN DOUBT, TAKE AN OUT
Have you found yourself in the proverbial pickle, where a potentially strong hand could inflict a big dent on your stack? Sniffing a defeat around the corner is a trait experienced players tend to have, but don’t worry, this will come through experience. In most cases, it’s advisable to fold and live to fight another day than it is to call your way into a costly loss at the showdown.
Should this losing situation ever come along, it’s best to take it in your stride and learn from it. Jot down mental notes on what could have given your opponent away — whether it was a hefty raise preflop, or a consistent sequence of bets that should have alerted you during postflop. In any case, loss is sometimes inevitable in poker — as tends to be the case in almost every game out there.
3) OBSERVE YOUR OPPONENTS
Once you implement the above poker strategy, you’ll find yourself sitting out most hands, thus battling boredom as a result. Put that downtime to good use by examing your opponents’ behaviour. Try to identify how often your opponent checks, when they tend to raise and if they prefer slow playing strong hands or not. These small crumbs of information might prove to be invaluable in future streets, when you could possibly face off with them for some big pots.
This is a great segue to introduce the importance of tells in poker. The term ‘tell’ in the context of poker refers to the hints you could pick up that opponents reveal in certain situations. For instance, if a player tends to play extremely tight and raises suddenly, that seems like a tell that they have a very strong made hand.
Moreover, it is said that most advanced poker players could spot a bad player within the first half-hour of play, owing to their close observations. This often leads to their preying on said player’s inexperience, creating a lucrative dynamic for them if their tell is correct. This is why the saying “read the room” has never been more apt than when it comes to playing poker games.
4) DON’T FEEL LIKE PLAYING POKER? SKIP IT
Perhaps one of the most important poker tips is to play poker only when you’re in the mood to do so. Forcing your way onto a table after a bad day will only compound matters, since you’ll be tempted to play aggressively regardless of whether the situation calls for it. This will inevitably lead to your bankroll paying a very avoidable price.
Before starting to play a few rounds of poker, make sure to gauge where you’re at emotionally. If you’re finding it hard to separate frustrating life events from poker, or if you’re still salty about the couple of bad beats you suffered at yesterday’s table, you should really reconsider playing. Your mental game is inextricably tied to your poker performance — don’t neglect it!
Remember; poker should be a recreational activity. If at any point in time, it doesn’t feel that way, it’s best to take a hiatus until your poker batteries are recharged. Even the best poker players take breaks from the game when they feel that their A-Game has gone MIA.
5) ATTACK IN THE FACE OF WEAKNESS
Experience will teach you that most players tend to check as much as possible when holding a relatively weak hand. This is done in order to reach the showdown with very few chips invested in the pot, and if any players place a bet of substantial value, they can fold without any real repercussions to their stack.
If your opponents seem reluctant to place bets, you could capitalise on their passive play by playing aggressively, even if you have air. This is the epitome of bluffing, but in this situation, it has a relatively high chance of working out.
In the face of a value bet, players who have been checking through every street won’t be too keen on placing their chips on the line, especially when prompted by a large bet. This is a good way of winning the pot while facing little to no opposition whatsoever.
6) START PLAYING AT LOWER STAKES TABLES
When starting to play money games, it’s always recommended to start off at the shallow end of the pool, making your way to the deeper end once you rack up some experience. This remains true regardless of whether you decide to play online poker, live poker or poker tournaments.
Although you’ll want to win money from the get-go, you’ll need to comb through some poker tips and strategy articles to shape up those poker skills. Also, poker doesn’t have to be played as a cash game where you’ll be compelled to put money on the line. There are many poker sites out there where the game can be played completely free of charge, so check them out!
The start of players’ poker careers should be focused on learning and having fun. Although you might be fuzzy about the nuances of each situation, you’ll begin to play differently depending on the scenario as time goes on.
7) PATIENCE IS KING, CASH IS A VIRTUE
This poker strategy guide wouldn’t be worth its salt had we skipped the importance of patience within the world of poker. In fact, you could implement as many poker strategies as you want, but if you’re lacking patience, you’re lacking the true key to success. Bluffing and going all-in could sometimes work, but being patient and waiting for the right moment to strike is much more bankroll friendly.
The undisputed, if seldom mentioned truth about poker is that you’ll be dealt many more losing hands than winning ones. Most hands are statistically very unlikely to win, even though they can take home a pot if played correctly and if Lady Luck permits. Knowing when the poker odds are swinging in your favour and acting on it requires patience — even if it means sitting out hands that look good on paper, such as pocket 10s.
8) SEMI-BLUFF TO BEEF UP YOUR STACK
If you’re not one to pull off big bluffs, you might have a better time trying some semi-bluffs instead. Semi-bluffing is the child of bluffing, except that it’s not as arrogant in nature.
What this lacklustre metaphor means is that semi-bluffing involves playing aggressively with a hand that, although not made, has the potential to become a winning hand in later streets. Such hands include but are not limited to flush draws and straights draws. Although bluffing with air can bear its fruits in the right circumstances, semi-bluffing can pay off really well if future streets allow.
The key takeaway here is that semi-bluffing has the potential of paying off greatly — whether it is by players folding and handing you the pot, or by getting lucky cards in future streets.
9) PLAY YOUR HANDS AGGRESSIVELY EARLY ON IN A TOURNAMENT
Most of these poker strategy tips have been oriented to relatively new poker players, but let’s throw the big dogs of poker a bone, shall we? If you’re one of the advanced players of the game and you’re tempted to try your luck on the grand stage, consider this tournament strategy: play aggressively in the tournament’s early stages.
The reason for this is that being short-stacked in the bubble is the last situation you’d want to be in. Avoid playing defensively from the get-go, since you’ll be passing along several opportunities to build up a lifeline that will serve you well when the bubble rolls around. In fact, it is only during the final stages of a tournament that you’ll need to preserve your stack as much as possible.
10) AVOID LIMPING FIRST
It’s generally not recommended to limp — the act of calling the big blind preflop — as the first player to invest in the pot voluntarily. That’s because the players acting after you are free to re-raise and take the pot for themselves.
The premise of this poker strategy is that having a player act after you is a great disadvantage, since you’re ultimately at their mercy to check or call your bet. Should they opt for re-raising instead, they will place every other player in the position of either calling or folding.
On the other hand, over-limping — the act of playing after a player has limped — might be more advantageous. Seeing as multiple players have acted before you in this situation, you’re free to act aggressively and steal the pot preflop, granted that no other players have a strong enough hand to call. Nevertheless, each strategy has its moments and exceptions, so make sure to evaluate the situation and act accordingly.
11) ENHANCE YOUR POKER VOCABULARY
Although not a poker strategy per se, an important poker tip is to broaden your horizon of terminology related to the game. Whether you’re playing Texas hold’em or Omaha variants, there are certain terms that abbreviate certain situations which, in turn, help quicken discourse.
For instance, the phrase ‘slow-playing’ refers to the act of passively playing a potentially strong hand. As you can see, the reason why poker players generally make use of jargon is that it helps brevity.
You could add to your poker lingo either by playing online and chatting with fellow poker enthusiasts, or by consulting a list of poker terms on the EnergyCasino blog. We’ve gone the distance to create an expansive list of terms that would awe even the biggest professional poker player out there — suffice to say that it’s all you need to have at your fingertips when discussing the happenings of your poker rounds.
12) LET GO OF YOUR EGO
At one point or another during your poker journey, you might find yourself in the crossfire of an ego war, especially if you frequently play among professional players. Many players tend to let their emotions loose but this could be a very dangerous thing to do, especially in a high-stakes poker game.
This could look like anything from opponents constantly placing continuation bets, a repeated blocking bet and even some value bets to push your buttons. In this case, your best poker strategy would be to assess your hand in relation to the board texture and your opponents’ hands, then act accordingly.
Granted, it might be frustrating to lose a few hands to the same player, even if you thought that the pot odds were in your favour. Nevertheless, the golden rule that every player should learn before starting to play poker is to separate their emotions from the table. Many factors contribute to winning a hand, and some of them are beyond our control. That is simply the nature of the game, and it’s a factor that makes poker so exciting, to begin with.
13) RAISES ARE CUES, TAKE THEM
Just like yawning at the end of a meetup to get your friends to leave your place, raises are equally efficient cues that should be paid attention to. Beginner poker players tend to walk right into raises, not knowing that the reason for that raise is because their opponent’s cards may have formed a great hand on the turn or river.
The question is: how can we know whether our opponent’s raise is a cue that they have a premium hand or if it’s just a bluff? Figuring this out would be akin to deciphering the Da Vinci Code, but there are some ways to have an idea of what’s really going on.
It’s extremely important to pay attention to previous streets; did your opponent check their way to the showdown, only to place a huge bet thereafter? On the other hand, did your opponent place a small bet in each street, only to go ham in the showdown? The former reeks of a bluff, while the latter reeks of a monster.
14) DIFFERENT POSITIONS INFLUENCE STRATEGY — PAY ATTENTION TO THEM
Although we wouldn’t go so far as to say that the position of a poker player at the table will decide the fate of their hand, it will still have a say in their overall winning rate.
Playing at a later position in the betting order is considered an advantage, since you’ll get to act after most players and thus affect the table’s dynamic as you wish. Considering that each player at the table will have acted before you, you’ll have had a sneak peek at their behaviour. For example, if most opponents have checked preflop, you could choose to sway the pot odds in your favour by raising, thus potentially stealing the pot preflop.
On the flip side, playing at the early positions is quite an awkward position to be in. Each opponent will be able to tell the range of your poker hand, and they might swing the pot odds their way by raising. You won’t be able to tell if any of your opponents have premium hands or if they’ll just check their ace high.
The early position is already unfavourable in online poker, so you could imagine how risky it becomes in tournament poker, where every chip could make or break the success of even the best poker player around.
The key takeaway from this is that you should base your poker strategy depending on your position at the table. Feel free to fold a mediocre hand if you don’t like your position.
15) AVOID COLD CALLING
This last poker tip might sound like a no-brainer to good poker players, but it’s one of the most important factors to keep in mind: don’t be the table’s calling station! We’re not simply talking against playing loosely, but we’re also referring to cold calling — the act of calling despite not yet having invested money in the pot. Players who act in a late position at the table can freely re-raise to an amount that you’re not comfortable calling, thus rendering your cold call strategy a waste of money.
Although it makes sense to cold call with a top pair or other great draws, sinking money into the pot without a great hand isn’t advisable. Remember: most hands have a very low win rate, so it’s not a good idea to put money in the pot if you’re not confident with your hand.
Furthermore, this is one of the poker tips that looks to promote bankroll management, since you’ll start saving more money when actively avoiding to cold call — at least, with weaker hands.
16) PLAY POKER AT ENERGYCASINO
This could be the best poker tip you’ll ever hear, especially if you’re tired of scouring the internet for poker sites. EnergyCasino is chock-full of fascinating online poker games ranging from Texas hold’em to Caribbean Stud poker. This isn’t to mention the vast array of tournaments and challenges held daily — and you can forget about expensive buy-ins too! Load up our ‘Promotions’ page to find out more.