Poker Tips

These tips are meant for the novice poker player and apply generally to any of the poker variants.

1. Wait for a good starting hand because most hands are simply not good hands. Playing too many hands is probably the single most common mistake committed by beginners. Remember that playing more hands doesn’t mean winning more hands so be selective about the hands that you play.
2. Once you finally get that good hand that you’ve waited for, play it aggressively (which is not the same as loosely). This means that that you shouldn’t be too timid but should raise or re-raise rather than always checking and finding yourself having to call someone else. And when you bet, you should bet more than the token minimum allowable bet.
3. Study your opponents closely. Since you’re not sitting at the poker table to observe the reactions and body language of the other players, you will have to rely on other tell tale signs such as betting patterns, reaction time, speed of play and fold and flop percentages which can all be recalled when you are playing online.
4. Stick to the tables that match your skill and bankroll. If the limit tables that you usually play are full, don’t play at a higher limit game that you cannot afford. As the stakes rise, so too does the skill level of the players around that table.
5. Don’t play with money that you don’t have or can’t afford to lose which means planning your bankroll ahead of time and deciding what are your loss limits.