How to Win at Poker What is your favorite card game? Let me guess. Hold-em? Horse racing? Baccarat? Let’s move on.
I play a lot of poker. It’s either NL Hold’em, Omaha, Stud, or Omaha 8 or better. None of these are my favorite games, but they are good games to learn and I have won enough at them to know that if you can learn how to play decent poker, you can win enough money to make a profit.
Win at Poker
The thing I like to do is play $1-$2 No Limit Hold’em. It’s a very light game, where you can have as many callers or suckers in as you want, and the first guy who has gone all-in wins the pot. It’s easy to learn. You can learn it from the poker room in fifteen minutes, but I think twice before attempting to teach it to anyone else.
The key to winning at this game is having patience. It’s easy to get impatient and upset easily. Don’t. Don’t play Hoyle’s Hand Theory, either. Take your time, and be patient.
The great poker pro David Sklansky says patience is the most important virtue in poker. “Patience is the proper attitude to have for acquiring the information needed for decision making in difficult circumstances.” – Poker Pro David Sklansky.
When you don’t get your card, you have no idea what your opponent has. You haven’t verified any of the bets yet. You haven’t heard what the other players are going to do. But you can guess, almost. You’ve heard stories about how lucky you are, or how terrible your opponents are.
In no limit hold ’em, you don’t have to call if you don’t have good cards. Actually, “don’t call unless you have something decent” is actually good advice. Sometimes, if it’s folded around your way, you’ll make a very large bet simply by being patient.
In limit poker, you’ll see a lot more hands than no limit. capricious players will often play their hand before folding a good deal of cards. This leaves more pieces out thereome one can use.
The ability to read hands is greatly reduced in no limit. If you are in late position, you can play a hand like AhJh. If you bet and get called, you still have a chance of hitting a straight. Before you know it, you are busted, already beaten by two pair or trips. The streak is over.
Is patience and information important? You bet. Here’s why.
This is a very common observation in low limit games. Players will pile into pots and call raises in hopes of becoming the big stack. Low limit players will call with hands like 8 3 off suit as if they were A-3 off suit. They think they can bully you with it. They can’t because you are making the same sized bet with the same strength. subscribed users, this is called slowplaying.
Take these observations and using them into consideration later in the hand when the circumstances are more favorable. Try to steal the pot whenever you can. If you raise preflop and get a call, try to steal the pot. If you have a premium hand, like AhJh and there’s an ace and a king in the flop, the percentages are that the small blind is going to have a very good hand. Fold.
When you are in the blinds, in the small blind, or anywhere under the average stack size, you need to be aggressive. Raise. Bet preflop. Bet post flop.
The key is to get the money in with the best hand and then to pressure your opponents into folding by betting aggressively. This will build your stack and also give you a chance to win the tournament.
Suggestion
In order to be a winner at online low-limit hold ’em tournaments, you are going to have to vary your poker style from time to time. Don’t be predictable in your betting. Keep your opponents guessing. You should win a lot of small-ball pots because most of the players are not used to seeing so many hands in a short period of time. Don’t make the mistake of playing every hand.
For example, if you have pocket 7’s and you limp into the small blind with $12, you will probably get raised. If you have Ah-Ks and limp into the small blind with $12, you will probably get raised also. Keep these things in mind when you are playing in online poker tournaments.
