Are you finding it impossible to turn a decent amount of profit with poker games? Have you tried different poker strategies, but yet your results are best described as “somewhere around break-even? Or maybe you’re already contemplating ditching poker for other similar number-games like DominoQQ online?
If this is your current predicament with poker, you don’t need to lose your sleep over it because you’re not alone. All of the above describes the results of the majority of poker players. Instead of giving up, many of them seek out winning strategies like you’re about to do in this post.
Often, players are actually closer to success in poker games than they realize, and all it’d take to transform their fortunes are just a few adjustments here and there.
Unfortunately, identifying these necessary adjustments is no easy task. Many players spend months trying to find it, while also squandering money along the way, and yet come out with nothing.
But in order for you not to end up like them, here are five tips to transform your poker playing skills.
Always consider the ranges and not hands
Although that may sound counterintuitive to an average poker player, it is the biggest winning secret of the pros. While an average player loves to try and put their opponent on a specific hand, a pro thinks of how they can achieve and maintain a certain range.
Indeed, a player needs to try and dictate their opponent’s moves, but thinking in terms of the hands will only give you temporary advantages, provided your opponent is not even far clever than you are. But when you think in terms of a range, not only will you be dictating the hands, but you will also be able to envisage the entire spectrum of hands somebody can have in a given situation.
A case study:
For example, opponent A can have a top pair, flush, middle pair, bottom pair, ace-high, a draw, or a complete air-ball bluff.
A pro: understands that their opponent can come up with this entire range of hands with various frequencies. As such, they try and figure out those frequencies and make the best play.
Average players: try to put somebody on exactly (or some other specific hand) because that’s “what their gut tells them.”
By and large, before you make your play, always remember that no player has a specific hand in poker, they only have a range, and it is from this range that they can make their play. So, always try to attack this range.
Understand that not all hands are suited to every situation
It is not news that a lot of poker players have a favorite hand. And immediately they get dealt a hand; they just want to play their favorite hands. Unfortunately, this is why many have been failing to turn a profit or make above break-even.
That is not to say that you shouldn’t play your favorite hand, only that you need to understand that the only time it makes sense to play a favorite hand is when you see an advantage.
Case study:
For example, let’s say you get dealt the old 9x 7x –suited in an early position. It is normal for your heart to start racing and you want to play it so bad!
However, in reality, you need to understand that 9x 7x –suited is a mediocre hand.
It only 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.
Stick with your winning strategy
As obvious as this may sound, it is important that every poker player learn to adhere to their winning strategy, regardless of whether the poker game involved is Texas Hold’em, 7 card stud, Razz, 2-7 triple draw, or the Chinese poker, DominoQQ online.
One of the biggest mistakes many poker players make is that they try to mix things up or change their strategy whenever their results begin to go south. This is a very bad practice, one that will only lead to more losses than gains.
Nobody comes to online poker or a poker table without months of learning. And all those studies, experiences, and knowledge gathered over time must have taught you a certain way of winning. But it can only actually matter if you put the knowledge to practice at the table all through your sessions.
It is not okay to just switch your play or strategy just because you’re suddenly bored or because the lady luck is currently not smiling at you.
By and large, always try to play with a winning strategy you’ve learned over time. But if you ever have to change it, make sure it’s for a calculative reason, and not because you feel like doing it or because you just think you want to make something happen.
Know when to fold your aces
The biggest distinction between a pro and an average player lies in their respective abilities to fold an overpair.
You know that little sick feeling you get when you have AX AX 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 recognizable at the lower stakes — especially when you play online poker — where it is 100 percent 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 beaten.
Know your match
One terrible mistake that many average poker players often make is the act of playing in bad games.
Why won’t you just find your match? If you cannot find somebody at the table who’s playing poorly or whom you’re better than, then you need to ask yourself whether you even belong there at all.
If you’re playing with friends and you’re still learning, or you’re just doing it for the fun of it, this might be okay. But if you’re doing it to make some winnings, then there is nothing more terrible than sitting at a table where there are decent-to-good players.
To win in poker, you have to be playing against players that are still making errors and not against those that have mastered the art of bankroll management.
Remember the saying from the classic movie Rounders, “if after sitting at a table for almost half an hour, you still cannot identify the sucker in your midst, then you’re obviously the sucker.
