If you want to learn how to win at poker then start with the basics of good hand selection. Forget all the other stuff like bluffing and strategy for the moment, and just concentrate on picking which hands to play and then learn how to play those hands well.
Some players tend to think that they will do better as higher limits but to be honest if you have mistakes in your game the only effect moving to the higher limits will have is to magnify those mistakes and make them even more costly for you.
Start with the basics, and learn each hand one by one.
For beginners in online poker, the prospect of losing their entire deposit may seem very off putting. It shouldn’t be – you should welcome the prospect.
If you went to college, or signed up for a night class, or any other learning process, you would expect to pay for the education. In fact, you may not even value what you are getting if you did not have to pay to get it.
Look at your online poker education in the same light. Why should you expect to be able to sit in to an online poker game and make a profit? You are up against many players that do know what they are doing, that have taken the time to learn the game and how to win at it.
If it really was that easy to simply sit in and come away a winner, the who would you be winning from?
You should expect to lose. And to lose for quite a while. The game is not easy to master, and that is how you want it to be, though you don’t know it. For when you have mastered it, and are making a steady profit from playing, you don’t want it to be easy for new players to come in and take some of that profit from you.
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in: Losing players, losing poker players, mastering the game, poker education, profit from playing
It is a fact that playing with the best poker hands – and only those hands – will mean that you will win more pots.
But there are a lot of problems with that approach.
Firstly, only about one hand in ten will be a good hand. Most of the time you will be dealt second rate starting hands. If you wait for the premium hands, like pocket aces or kings, then you won’t be playing many hands per hour.
You can possibly survive for quite a while playing that way in some tournies – and it is even a suggested winning poker strategy for certain types of games (we’ll get to that later on) – but playing like that in a cash game is suicide for your bankroll.
Not only will you be paying the blinds for every round of the table, but the other players will quickly catch on that you are a tight player and you will find less opposition – and little money in the pot – when you do eventually play with your premium hand.
In theory it is a great idea to only play with great starting hands, but in reality you will need some more plays than just that if you want to win at poker.
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in: pocket aces, pocket pairs, poker strategy, premium hands, starting hands, tight player
