Poker Strategy

When you start playing in real-money games for the first time, you're going to see a lot of other players on the felt, especially at lower-stakes limit poker tables where the betting is capped. It can seem challenging to play so many other people at once, but you might be ...

Don’t let loose poker players push you around. Find out how to identify and create a poker strategy that works against them. Online poker tables are rife with loose opponents, and that's why a lot of older players simply don't enjoy the online game as much. They're the source of ...

There are many processes for getting the most out of your opponents at the poker table, but REM is perhaps the easiest to learn to implement because it involves three easy steps: Range, Equity, Maximize. REM was introduced in the book Professional No-Limit Hold 'Em: Volume 1 by Matt Flynn, ...

Limit poker is perfect for players that are new to the game and want to start playing in cash games without risking their bankroll. It's not nearly as exciting as no limit hold 'em, but it can help you understand that fundamentals of the game while building your bankroll. We're ...

If you've ever read anything about poker strategy, you've probably heard about bet sizing. For a lot of basic players, it's not a very big deal, but once you understand the rules of the game and how it flows, you're definitely going to want to take the time to get ...

If you've never done this before, do it now. Sit down and ask yourself, honestly "What do I want from poker?" If you know you're a recreational player, that's great, move on. However, if you're a player who wants to get more serious about the game, you're going to want ...

Poker players who are serious about the game understand the power of value betting. If you’re not familiar with the term but have seen it used in articles such as this, value betting occurs when you extract as much as possible from your opponents by persuading them to continue betting ...

Most of the time, these articles are written under the assumption that you're always going to be playing against players who are as good as, if not better than, yourself. What happens if you're playing against a table full of calling stations, loose passive players who are just happy throwing ...

AQ is a powerful starting hand, there is no doubt, but it's also, in my opinion, the most overvalued hand that new players to hold 'em find themselves holding. Many players simply refused to fold AQ preflop, no matter how the betting is going and some will even call bets ...

One of the most important factors in no-limit Texas hold 'em games is also one of the most overlooked: the number of chips each player has. The size of one's stack greatly affects the strategy they'll use to approach the table. For instance, the amount a person buys in for ...

In his book The Theory Of Poker, David Sklansky posits that you make money when your opponents play differently than they would if they could see your cards. This "fundamental theorem of poker" means that if you bluff and your opponent folds their better hand, you win. If you can ...

There are two ways in which you're going to find yourself in prolonged heads-up play: you'll either be at the end of a tournament and you're battling the one person standing between you and victory, or you're actually engaging in a heads-up tournament. Many poker players and writers feel that ...

It's the hand that sneaks up on many players unawares and its unassuming nature gives you the chance to make a lot of money. We're talking about three-of-a-kind. First of all, though, we need to clarify the difference between a "set" and "trips," since that'll help define the conversation a ...

Most of the time, simply using trial-and-error can improve your abilities. For instance, if you're a baseball pitcher, you can improve the speed and accuracy of your pitches by practice. When you hit the glove at 90mph, you pay attention to how you did it and then avoid the things ...

Your poker "win rate" is the amount of money you win over a set period of time or number of hands. It is also one of the single most important numbers any poker player can learn in order to refine their game and determine if they're ready to move up ...

It's common knowledge that poker is a game where you're constantly trying to outsmart your opponents and you need to be able to figure out exactly why your opponent is making the decisions they're making. The ability to think through situations and make a decision quickly is a key element ...

When you're playing no limit Texas hold 'em poker, there's a very distinct possibility that you may be putting all of your chips on the line at any given time. It's therefore essential for you to understand that you must be aware of not only your own stack size, but ...

Low stakes poker games are a great place to sharpen your skills, but they have their own risks and rewards. Online poker sites have made it easy for players to participate in real money games with stakes lower than any brick and mortar casino could feasibly offer. You'll see Omaha ...

Find out what common mistakes players make and get some advice on how you can avoid them. It doesn't matter how good any poker players is — there's always room to make improvements in one's game. While the big mistakes can be glaringly obvious and easy to compensate, it's the ...

What is "tilt?" Many poker players talk about tilt, but it's a term I've rarely seen defined properly, which may lead newcomers to believe that tilt is what occurs when you receive a run of bad hands when, in fact, tilt involves the human side of things much more than ...

Find out how to find out what other players have on their mind. When you make the transition from playing online poker to sitting down across from real opponents in a cardroom, one of the things you must take advantage of is the ever popular "tell."  It is vital to ...

A drawing hand is any pair of cards that have no immediate value but have the potential to become strong hands if the right cards hit the felt. As an example, let's use a 9-8 suited or J9. While you wouldn't go all in on these immediately, there's a good ...

It's one of the most basic skills for players to learn and yet it's often overlooked by beginning players who are looking at things like table position and immediate hand strength. We're talking about calculating the outs and it's crucial to moving from being a player that sort of understands ...

Understand how to get the most out of three-betting with this guide for beginners. Three-betting refers to the act of making the third bet in limit hold 'em poker games. For instance, if Player A bets, Player B raises and Player C Re-Raises then Player C would have "three-bet." It's ...

Many poker strategists will tell people that the most important skill a winning cash game player isn't knowing when to hold 'em, fold 'em, etc — it's finding games in which they might have an edge. In live games, it can be comparatively easy as you can actually see your ...

One of the best things about online poker is that it allows you to be in multiple places at once, meaning that there's always something happening, even if you're sitting out of a hand at one table. I've been playing at three tables a session for a while now and ...

Get to know the ins and outs of bankroll management so you can get the most out of your online poker deposit! Everyone wants to believe that their card skills alone will make them successful at the game, but the truth is that money management is just as important and ...

If you've made it this far in the tournament and are at the last table in a freeroll, I suppose some congratulations are in order. You may well be in the bubble, but I doubt you've got much more than a Happy Meal's worth added to your bankroll unless this ...

We continue our discussion of how to play in freeroll online poker tournaments. In our last poker strategy article, we discussed the beginning stages of playing in a freeroll poker tournament. If you're reading this one, we presume you've gotten through the first stretch of the proceedings and are now ...

Freeroll tournaments are terrific, especially if you get in on the action where you can get your chunk of thousands of dollars, but the competition is fierce and can actually be tougher than low-stakes real money tournaments. So, how does the average player prepare and make sure they walk away ...

Let’s face it — hold ‘em poker games at just about every level have gotten tough over the last few years as more mathematically-oriented players have entered the fray. The generation of players that has been raised with online poker definitely play a more aggressive game than the people who ...

Find out what the difference is in playing a turbo online poker tournament versus a normal one and how you need to change your game to match the faster pace. Turbo tournaments are frequently the bane of a beginning-to-mid-level poker player’s existence, as they can either reward a cunning player ...

When you approach the final table in any tournaments, you need to ask yourself one simple question: what do you want to accomplish? Do you want to get in the money and walk away without too many scars or do you want to dive in there and work your way ...

Having a big stack in a poker tournament is not the solution to your problems, despite the confidence that it (quite naturally) fills you with. When you get a larger stack, your playing style needs to change accordingly and move from being a tight aggressive player to working with more ...

The cliché is that you need to know when to hold 'em, fold 'em, walk away and run (which I suppose in the case of online poker means logging off the site,) but the reason that clichés are propagated is because they often reveal an element of truth, and in ...

Pretty much every online poker player starts at the low-stakes tables when they decide to move into real-money games, and the reasons are pretty obvious. A lot of players will tell you that low-stakes games aren't profitable, but that's generally because low-stakes players find themselves in on way more hands ...

Much like the fields of crypto zoology and psychic studies, poker is full of myths that have become inflated to the point where they're accepted as fact by many people who aren't familiar with the game, and by a shocking number that are. We're going to do a blow-by-blow look ...

Poker is, let's face it, pretty addictive. The unwary player can find themselves hemorrhaging chips and money without realizing it until it's too late and even the smartest player can find themselves in the middle of a cold streak that is just plain not going to warm back up. So, ...

Since their introduction into most online poker rooms' repertoire, Sit And Go tournaments have become one of the most popular forms of the game for new players. They offer a wide range of buy-ins and typically last less than an hour, making them perfect for those that are gun-shy about ...

There are strategies specific to online poker that don't apply in the real world. Online poker software gives you tools that you simply don't have access to in the real world and by using them to your advantage, you can start building a strategy that works best for you and ...

1. Bet hands that you feel are in the lead for value. Don't let your opponents draw out a bigger hand without making them pay more than they should have to see another card. 2. Only draw to hands in which you're getting proper odds. Calling a big bet into ...

Tournament strategy has been addressed by countless poker writers, all with their own method of play. The game of poker has no correct strategy to employ every time. Most decisions should be made based on a combination of the odds involved and the meta-game of the table at the time ...

The setting that we play poker in has a huge bearing on the type of strategy we approach the game with. A tournament setting should be approached differently than playing in cash games. It makes sense to play the best type of poker for your style, but both tournament and ...

Do you ever wonder why so many familiar faces are on final tables on television? Why so many professionals are able to get deep into multi-table tournaments and cash time and time again? They do it by building a big stack in the early stages of the tournament, when play ...