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Are you struggling to turn a decent profit at the poker tables on a consistent basis? Are your results best described as 'somewhere around break-even'?
Nov 23, 2017 5 Quick Tips To Win A LOT More Money At Poker Doug Polk Poker. Poker Hands is the show where Doug analyzes live poker hands from tv poker shows such as Poker After Dark, EPT (European Poker.
First off, don't worry because you are not alone. This describes the results of the majority of poker players.
Often, however, it is just a few small strategy adjustments that can take your game from mediocre to amazing — from break-even to crushing it.
In this article, I am going to provide you with seven subtle but highly effective poker tips to take your game to the next level.
Editor's Tip: You can try all the poker tips on one of these free poker sites. Playing online poker for free is the best way to hone your poker skills and practice with no risk.
Try them — your bankroll will thank you.
1. Think About Ranges, Not Hands
One of the easiest ways to spot the difference between average poker players and elite ones is by how they think about what their opponent has.
- Average poker players try and put somebody on a specific hand.
- Advanced poker players think in terms of ranges.
A range is essentially the entire spectrum of hands somebody can have in a specific situation. For example, player X can have a flush, top pair, middle pair, bottom pair, a draw, ace-high or a complete air-ball bluff.
Good players understand that player X will show up with this entire range of hands with various frequencies.
They try and figure out those frequencies and then make the best play.
Average players try to put an opponent on exactly (or some other specific hand) because that's 'what their gut tells them.'
Watch the video below to understand how poker pro Jason Wheeler uses every possible information available to understand his opponent's cards and choose his play.
Poker Tip Key Takeaway: Be Realistic
Think about your opponent's range instead. Nobody has a specific hand in poker — they only have a range.
They will show up with different hands to varying degrees.
2. Ditch Your Favorite Hand
A lot of people have a favourite hand. I know that every time I get dealt the old -suited my eyes light up and I want to play it so bad!
However, in reality, I know that -suited is a mediocre hand.
It makes sense to play it in some spots — late position, for instance, in an unopened pot. But it should almost always be folded in early position.
If you currently have a favourite hand, that's fine — most people do. But don't give it preferential treatment and make bad plays with it.
Winning poker is about math and cold hard logic, not superstition.
Poker Tip Key Takeaway: Be Smart
Playing too many hands is a widespread mistake (see: Five Common Mistakes New Poker Players Make).
One of the best ways to avoid it is to introduce range-based thinking in your reads.
3. Adopt a Consistent Strategy
Another big key to becoming a great poker player (and perhaps one of the most important poker tips you should know) is consistently applying a winning strategy.
It is not okay suddenly to change things up (e.g. to open with -suited from early position) just because you are bored or tilted.
All of your learning, experience and study over the years has given you a body of knowledge telling you how to play this game profitably.
But it only actually matters if you apply it at the poker tables all the time. Every hand counts and every session counts.
Elite poker players apply the same winning strategy over and over again, no matter how they feel or what their recent results have been.
Poker Tip Key Takeaway: Be Consistent
Poker is a long-term game. You need time to build your bankroll and find the right strategy that works for you.
You should not change your strategy after a big win or a big loss (here's why). If you really feel like your approach needs to change, make sure you read Nathan Williams' Handling the Ups and Downs of Low Stakes Poker first.
4. Always Have a Reason
Big-time winning poker players will sometimes break from their standard, successful strategies, but always for obvious reasons.
An average player might start raising -suited in early position because he is bored or wants to make something happen.
An elite poker player will raise with this hand in this position on occasion because he notices the table is playing passively and there are a couple of recreational players in the blinds.
There is a clear reason then to believe that raising -suited in early position (typically a fold under normal circumstances) might be a profitable play in this situation.
If you can produce a well-reasoned argument why deviating from your regular strategy might be more profitable, then it is okay. It is the 'because I feel like it' or 'I am bored' reasoning that has to go.
Poker Tip Key Takeaway: Be Reasonable
Think. Use your experience to analyse the situations, and then understand 'why' you would take one road and not another.
If you don't have enough experience to evaluate different situations yet, you better go back to the free games and grind.
5. Know When to Fold Your Aces
Another clear difference between average poker players and great poker players is the ability to fold an overpair.
You know that little sick feeling you get when you have and a tight opponent raises all-in on the turn? You make the so-called 'crying call', and he turns over the set yet again.
You need to start paying attention to that feeling a little bit more often.
Certain patterns are easily recognisable at the lower stakes — especially when you play online poker — where it is 100 per cent the correct play to fold your overpair.
Good players can let go of any emotional attachment to their pretty-looking hands. Average players get married to their aces or kings instead, and can't let them go even when they know they are beat.
Poker Tip Key Takeaway: Aces Lose Too
Starting with the top of all poker hands isn't enough to guarantee you the pot.
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Ask anyone for good poker pro tip, and they will all tell you the same thing: sometimes, you'll need to fold those Aces.
6. Realise Tilt Only Hurts You
Tilt is a destroyer of bankrolls, dreams and poker careers.
I can't tell you how often I receive emails or comments from people who describe to me how they've tilted vast amounts of their bankroll away when things went badly at the poker tables.
The reality of poker is that sometimes things will go badly for you, and there is absolutely nothing that you can do about it.
This is what you sign up for every time you sit down to play.
There's always the possibility you might run terribly. You might run lights out as well, though.
When you allow yourself to lose control of your emotions and throw your strategy out the window, the only person you are hurting is yourself.
All those hours you've spent trying to learn and improve your game were basically wasted because you decided to choose your emotions over reason when it mattered.
Respect the work that you have done. You owe it to yourself to maintain more composure and stop throwing away money when the cards go south.
Poker Tip Key Takeaway: Relax
The psychological side of poker can be overwhelming, and you need to be ready to deal with it.
Swings happen and bad beats will come. If you don't know how do deal with this, have a look at the poker tips Italy's poker pro Rocco Palumbo shared with PokerNews at the 2017 PokerStars Championship Prague.
If these tips work for Palumbo, they may as well work for you!
7. Don't Play in Bad Games
One more way average players regularly sabotage their poker results is by stubbornly playing in games that are full of decent-to-good regulars.
If you can't find somebody at the table who is playing very poorly, then you have to ask yourself why it is that you are even there.
If you only play poker for the mental challenge or recreation or pleasure, then this is fine. This poker tip doesn't necessarily apply to you.
But if winning is at all a priority for you, then you need to remember you don't turn a significant profit in poker by pushing tiny edges against good poker players.
You win big by playing against players who are making significant fundamental errors and giving away their money over the long term.
As the classic movie Rounders reminds us, 'If you can't spot the sucker in your first half-hour at the table, then you are the sucker.'
Poker Tip Key Takeaway: Choose the Right Games
Don't sit with the pros if you can't beat them. Selecting the right games is key to your successes in poker — one wrong move, and you are out.
Again, there's no shame in playing free poker games or in looking for the easiest poker games to play online if that's what you need.
Final Thoughts
The divide between break-even players and big-time winners is not as wide as many people think.
It is often just a few simple little adjustments you can learn over time that can carry you over to enable you to start winning at a higher clip.
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A lot of it has to do with starting to view the game in a much more cold, detached, mathematical and logical way than you presently do.
Emotional and/or superstitious poker players almost always lose or struggle to remain even.
Elite poker players, meanwhile, know they are in it for the long haul and don't get overly wrapped up in each hand or moment. They continue to make the most profitable play again and again, no matter what.
Nathan 'BlackRain79' Williams is the author of the popular micro stakes strategy books Crushing the Microstakes and Modern Small Stakes. He also blogs regularly about all things related to the micros over at www.blackrain79.com.
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This article was originally published on Feb. 13, 2017. Last update: November 28, 2019.
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Why can’t I win money at online poker? Where am I going wrong? What do I need to do to improve my poker game?
I don’t know. Those are some pretty vague questions right there. Maybe if you sent me some stats, graphs and a few hand histories then I might be able to do something. Then again, this isn’t really much of a dialogue, so that’s not going to work either.
However, what I can do is give you a bunch of reasons as to why you can’t win money from online poker and ideas for what you could do to improve. How does, say, a nice, round 26 reasons sound?
Reasons why you lose money playing online poker.
- You’ve played 1,000 hands. Ever heard of variance? Don’t draw any conclusions until you hit at least 10,000 hands, and even then you can’t really rely on the results from that sample size. Just play lots of hands before you resign yourself to the losers’ corner.
- You don’t use bankroll management. If you don’t use BR management, you’re never going to be able to consistently win money from poker. And no, I’m not just saying that to scare you.
- You play too many hands. Sure, all hands in poker have a chance of winning, but then I also have a chance of having a threesome. Just because an event can happen it doesn’t mean that you should put your money behind it. The odds aren’t always going to be in your favour.
- You undervalue position. How many articles and tips is it going to take before you start to understand that position is actually way more important than you think it is? Have you not noticed how much easier it is to play from the button than it is UTG?
- You make minraises before and after the flop. Why? Raise 3BB + 1BB for each limper preflop and bet at least 2/3rds of the pot postflop and you’ll do much better for yourself. See bet sizing for more details.
- You multi-table too many tables. Yeah sure, all the cool kids are multi-tabling but that doesn’t mean you have to too. Take you time and play within your comfort zone. I’m sure that if I had a Ferrari as my first car I would have crashed it. Thank God that I was broke and had to settle for a washing machine with wheels.
- You chase draws too much. Blindly chasing after any and every flush and straight draw isn’t going to pay off. Pot odds will sort you out.
- You make crying calls. It’s nice to be able to see your opponent’s hand at the end, but if it’s costing you money then it’s not really all that nice at all. Learn to be content with your decision and fold if you think you’re behind.
- You blame the poker room and not yourself. PokerStars is rigged!!11!! - of course. It couldn’t possibly that you have leaks in your game could it. Winning players look inward not outward when they are losing.
- You haven’t read any poker books. Even in this high-tech world of training videos, interactive seminars and snowboarding, there is still room for the good old-fashioned poker books. The better ones are still incredibly helpful, so don't overlook them.
- You chase after stats. You are 28/16/2 and apparently you need to play 22/18/3 to be a winning poker player at 6max NLHE, so you force yourself to play less hands and raise more. Unfortunately, that’s not how it works. Focus on playing good poker and the stats will take care of themselves.
- You play whilst on tilt. Yes, that’s right. Shoving all-in with 63 offsuit UTG is by far the most effective way to get your money back after that bad beat.
- You make fancy plays against micro stakes players.Floating the flop and check raising the turn isn’t going to go down too well if the guy on the other side of the screen is dribbling, scratching his balls and randomly clicking buttons. Keep it simple. Bet your good hands and check/fold your bad hands.
- You don’t value bet big enough. Seriously, crank your value bets up and your winrate will skyrocket. Why bet $20 in to a $100 pot when you can get called by a $100 bet? Bigger value bets = bigger wins.
- You don’t value bet at all. Even worse! If you have a good hand, get some money for it. Don’t be afraid to lose 1 time out of 10 or whatever. Not value betting is like never crossing the road because you’re always afraid of getting run over.
- You call raises with weak hands and then fold to further action. If you don’t have a plan for later on in the hand you’re no better than a monkey clicking buttons. You should always have a plan of action for later streets. Fold on that turn if you don’t know what you’re going to do on the river.
- You don’t continuation bet.Continuation bets can pick up loads o’ little pots. Adding the cbet to your game is an instant winrate booster.
- You continuation bet too much. Easy now tiger, cbets are good and all but not necessarily 100% of the time. On some flops you’re much better off checking. See this video on continuation betting for a quick quite on when and when not to cbet.
- You don’t double barrel. This is often because you just cbet too much. If you’re not prepared to double barrel then hold back on those cbets.
- You double barrel too much. Just because your continuation bet got called it doesn’t mean you need to go ahead and throw the kitchen sink at your opponent to get them off the hand. Pick your spots.
- You triple barrel too much. I think this is going to be the biggest bankroll rapist. Poor triple barrels are going to ravage your bankroll until it’s a quivering mess.
- You don’t 3bet enough. If you’re not 3betting your AKs and AQs against loose raises you are missing out on easy money. Put money in the middle with strong hands.
- You call too many 3bets. If you raise and get 3bet by a tight player, what sort of hands do you think your AJo is beating?
- You don’t get rakeback. This isn’t going to fix the root of the problem, but if you’re a break even or marginal losing player then rakeback can turn you in to a winning player overnight.
- You play when you’re tired or drunk. As a rule of thumb, if it's not legal for you to drive, then you shouldn’t play poker either. As sad as it is to say this, think of poker as a sport. You need to be in good condition, otherwise your results will suffer.
- You have a “lucky” hand. No, J3o isn’t lucky and it’s not going to win you any money.
Any of those help you out?
Oh, and for what it's worth, you definitely can win money from poker. Have a look at how much money you can win playing online poker.
Go back to the interesting Texas Hold'em articles.
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