There are hundreds upon thousands of poker junkies out there who scrape around to find enough money just to jump into their next game. It may sound ridiculously silly, but it’s unfortunately very true. They bet their lives away until they completely run out of money, and eventually they begin borrowing it or stealing it from the wrong sources. Some of these men even have families to support, and other mouths to feed, as with most of us who love the game. It is highly possible for anyone to become addicted to the game of poker; therefore it is very important that all players learn to make their poker trips a privilege and not a necessity.

The most important thing to remember is that you are no poker pro like Chris Ferguson; as much as you’d like to be, you don’t make a living off of poker. Even if you do in rare circumstances, then you need to follow this tip as well. Winning a large stack of money in a game can get your heart-racing and your adrenaline pumping; the excitement of the moment is always fulfilling. This spur of the moment ecstasy of sorts can alter your thinking and push you to bet more and more. The best decision to make especially if your luck has been terrible all night, is to grab your nice big stack and walk away while you have money. A lot of players get lost in the game and let their winnings go to their head, and eventually they throw away everything they won, plus the money they put in, and wind up leaving with nothing. Plenty of people talk about how much they hate quitters, and they may even give you nasty glances when you collect your stack but none of that should matter. Quitting with a large stack of money you just won, or collected over time is much better than being forced out with nothing left. Even if you don’t win the game, you are still considered a winner for walking away with a good amount of money; after all that is what poker is about.

Another point that needs to be established for many players, especially aggressive ones, is that everyone should set a personal limit for themselves before they even enter the casino, poker rooms, or hop online. It is very easy to run to the cashier and pump more personal money into the game when your emotions are running high. It’s this type of tendency that spawns a terrible addiction to the game. As aforementioned above it can even cloud your judgment so much that you forget you have a family back home, or even in some cases ignore the fact, and all your money winds up sinking down the drain. For those players who are already there, with very little money left to gamble, the important move you need to make requires you to understand that poker is not always as important as you think it is. Poker can always be set aside for later, and even for those who have a terrible addiction sometimes poker needs to be set aside permanently. Never endanger your own life or the lives of others just to play a game.

Beginners’ of the sport can also become easily addicted; often it happens without them knowing. For those who are first starting, to remain safe novices’ should only play low-limit tables to keep their losing streaks to a bare minimum. You never want to hop in at a table with a $1,000,000 limit and find yourself face to face with nothing but veterans and pros that squander your stack and leave you nothing.

Remember to stay focused even after losing and not let your emotions gain control of your actions. If you have lost, and you have run out of the extra money you brought with you to play with. Don’t add in more and drop yourself into debt; just walk away for the night and go home.

Poker is fun and time-consuming but there is no reason it should be life-consuming. Don’t let the game pull you in and get you addicted. Stay ahead of your emotions and desires and plan everything out before you take a trip to the casino. Really, casinos don’t care about your life they just want your money and the same holds true for online poker venues. They’ll keep taking it if you give it to them no matter what your debt ratio is. If you’re losing terribly and your money is slipping away, then pick up what you have and get the hell out of there before you dig yourself a grave.

This is a very true and simple fact that will never disappear in the world of poker; there is just no winning without the use of deceiving opponents. The idea is to make opponents in many cases believe that you have cards you really do not; whether that be convincing opponents you have a really good hand when you don’t or vice versa. Part of that deception is the skilled art of bluffing.

Bluffing involves much more than just tricking your opponents with the cards in your hand; it also involves everything from your stature, mannerisms and even facial expressions. While bluffing, you always want to make sure not to give away a surefire tell that you are or aren’t bluffing. For many novice players this is very difficult to do; emotions can be very tough to control, but it can be done. However, the toughest decision to make regarding bluffing is simply, when to do it?

When do you bluff? There aren’t many places that lay down just what circumstances make it a good time to bluff. The following list of situations however call for just that; a bluff.

The most obvious situation is when you are one of the last few players in the pot. With less players still in, it also means less winning hands. Typically, this means that your opponents are doing the same exact thing; bluffing. This situation can also be very dangerous, especially if one or two of your opponents decide to stay in and call your bluff; it can get costly very quickly. As always, before bluffing make sure you have the best possible hand to bluff with. For example, you have a hand with King or Ace high; this makes it the highest possible hand at the table provided everyone else has nothing.

You’re in one of the last betting positions and everyone else has checked. Subsequently this could also mean that one of your opponents is planning to use a check betting strategy at some point which would mean they more than likely have a good hand. In most conditions however this particularly means that your opponents are bluffing or have nothing in their hand as of yet. This type of bluff is more common and there is more of a chance that your opponents will call; meaning it could also become a very costly bluff.

When the first three cards of the flop are terrible; or provide no good possible hands. If the flop is bad; this generally means that everyone has a bad hand unless of course they drew a pair. Keep in mind however the hands around the table could get more powerful with later flops; meaning this type of bluff should not be prolonged or backed with large bets. It wouldn’t be smart of a bluffing player to be persistent in this situation either; if an opponent bets large then you should probably drop out.

You bet big pre-flop and then miss after the cards drop. This situation is one to be decided heavily on beforehand. The other opponents will not know you missed; and if you keep betting in the sense of a bluff they may even fall for it and think you hit a jackpot. This can get extremely dangerous however if you are called; or an opponent believes you are bluffing. Many a player has been knocked out because they did not fold while they still had chips in their stack.

When all but a few opponents have folded pre-flop. This generally means one of two things; the opponents that are still in either have a very good hand, or they are heavily bluffing. This situation can be tough to gauge in many cases and should only be followed when the opponents that are still in are tight with their stacks; meaning this bluff should never be pursued against aggressive opponents.

You’re opponents are tight with their money. This type of bluff should not be used to gain a profit however, but merely to learn the type of opponents you are up against. Only bet enough to remain in to the end, and don’t raise the stakes unless you are sure of a very good hand. As mentioned before this type of bluff should be used to decipher the type of opponents at the table; aggressive, passive, heavy betters, etc. This will allow you to see if they bet only when they have a good hand or if they bet more frequently. It is always important to know what you are up against in the game of poker.

On the river, as a last resort. This certainly is not a bluff to be used if your stack is low; or if you are in danger of dropping out of the game. It should also be heavily thought out. In most cases by the river opponents have acquired higher hands; winning hands. This instance should not be used often and is not common, except in novices who have no grasp of the sport. If you bet big and miss on the river, then there is a chance you may be able to push your opponents into believing you still did acquire a good hand. As with the other types of bluffs this is dangerous; but it is more than likely the most dangerous bluff especially if your opponents call or raise the bet.

When there is a pair on the board. In many situations a pair on the board would mean that another player has a three of a kind or two pair. This situation is also one that should be pursued with extreme care however; especially if an opponent calls or bets. They could be bluffing as well, or they could certainly have what you are pretending to have in your hand. If an opponent calls, then raising the bet even more would not be recommended.

As you can see with all these types of bluffs, bluffing in general is dangerous if a player is not aware of what they, and their opponents, are doing. A bluff requires a very high understanding of the game of poker and is not to be used fluently and absent-mindedly. More importantly a good player should always assess the situation completely before deciding to lay chips down based on a lie. Then again, a poker game cannot be won without the use of bluffing somewhere; poker is the ultimate form of deception.

In that same situation, imagine the move that was just made is overturned and the opponent wins the hand…then you are out completely when you could have at least still had a few chips to toy around with. The reason this is all being said, is because every player needs to learn how to place a bet that is complimentary to the situation. If you are aiming to push your opponents into folding you do need to place a substantially larger bet; but you do not necessarily need to bet it all. A bet worth 25%, 50%, or even 75% of the total pot will knock out as many opponents as an all-in call. The simple fact of the matter is that if your opponent is planning to call, they will more than likely call regardless of the amount you throw down on the table. So if you’re going to do it, why not at least tread carefully and leave yourself some chips still on the table in the event you do lose the hand? It’s this kind of thinking that will get you through to the last rounds of any poker game.

Remember that age old fact that poker is a game of deceit, and exploitation? That’s exactly what every player needs to remain perfectly aware of. Every player in the game of poker thinks they’re so much better than they really are; and everyone, including the veterans, makes mistakes. You must assume at all times that there is a big chance your opponents know exactly what you are going to do and have been using that to their advantage. Not to mention that poker is a game of chance and there is always that possibility, no matter what, that you can lose the round even with some of the best possible hands. So you must always plan for a loss just as much as a win when you are betting. A great question to ask before placing a bet is; will I be able to continue further even if I do lose this hand?

At the complete opposite end of the spectrum; it happens often where a table of veterans watches an inwardly smirking novice throw down a large bet with every flop of the cards; they know that this happy little novice must have a good hand. The veterans assess the situation carefully and realize they no longer have the highest hand possible at the table so they all fold and the novice is left collecting his own stack of chips with no interest. The hand was completely wasted because this particular novice did not place their bet properly.

In order to place a complimentary bet a player must learn to assess their next move carefully. If you think your opponents have poor hands and you want to capitalize on that fact then place a higher bet. The reason for this is because the bigger bets are what count in this situation; if the opponent calls your larger bets, but folds later you will still make more money than if you place small bets over time and keep the other players in. However just like the situation mentioned at the very top if you want your opponents to fold you must bet a large amount; but the amount doesn’t always have to be your full stack.

You must also keep in mind at all times that even though it seems as if your opponents are chasing your tail; they may not be. Always plan for a loss just in case, that way if you do lose it won’t take you down as far in the ranks as it would have.

Strategies and individual moves also play a big part in the overall poker game; but it is very important to note that they should be complimentary to the amount of money a player has in their stack. For instance, a player with a smaller stack that is running out of total available money should never bet aggressively or adopt an aggressive strategy. In fact they should do almost the complete opposite; fold as much as possible and only remain in the round when they are absolutely sure of a winning hand, even then they more than likely should just call opponent’s bets rather than make their own. This will enable them to build their stack back up safely. On the other hand players with a very large stack should not hoard all they have; they should re-structure their strategy to work with the amount of total they have obtained. In many instances a player with a large stack can put more on the line often without worrying about opponents; especially if those opponents have very little money in their own stack.

Some beginners of the sport also need to realize that money, even in its vast importance, is merely a tool. In order to win money from your opponents, you must bet money, and in many cases not only just bet it but lose it as well. Other beginners must learn to save money as opposed to throwing it on the table recklessly. It’s tough to grasp both sides of the argument completely and not remain on one of the extreme edges. Some players hoard their money and are afraid to lose it, while others bet everything they have and lose entirely too much of it. In order to become a veteran, you must embrace both aspects and center yourself in-between the two boundaries; and at the same time learn to remain cool while altering your strategies based on how much total money you have.

One of the scariest instances during a game is when your stack runs low and you are cornered into slowly dwindling away your chips. At this point you must learn to remain calm and keep yourself as highly focused at the table as possible. Never bet it all simply because you are running out. Take your time, assess every move more carefully and be absolutely sure before you call or raise. As mentioned before remain in the round only when you have to; only when you are absolutely sure you have a winning hand. Poker is all about lies, tricks and deceit and opponents will certainly use your lack of total money as an advantage to gain more whenever they have the chance.

A good analogy for mistakes in poker would be that they can be like lies. You start out with one very small lie, but soon after someone realizes you lied; the lie then gets bigger and bigger and more lies compound upon each other as you fib more to keep the original lie in check. Eventually you find yourself caught up in a huge web of tangled shams and there’s no way out because you’ve dug such a deep hole. That is exactly how mistakes in poker work. They aggregate over time until either you finally run out of money; or you get knocked out. Take this example for instance; a few moves before you bet, or raised when you shouldn’t have and instead of backing out when you get the chance you decide to stay with your original move and very quickly plummet yourself through a losing hand; with much less money than when you started.

Don’t be afraid of mistakes either; everyone makes them even veterans of the sport, after all mistakes are what make the game profitable. The whole idea of the game is to play on your opponent’s weaknesses and use their mistakes to your advantage. No one is perfect however, which obviously means you will make mistakes of your own. The key is not letting your mistakes get any bigger than they should be. A veteran of the sport knows when to fold the good fold, and understands that sometimes losing even just a few chips isn’t the best decision in the long run. You need to pick and choose your battles carefully and you certainly don’t want to remain in the round if there’s a great chance the pot will be passed along to one of your opponents’. Learn to differentiate between the hands you should substantially back with chips, and those you should just sit out of. It makes perfect sense that if you’re giving away a few chips at a time and never get any back that before long you’ll be taking yourself out. So you definitely don’t want to bet or call every round and you most certainly don’t want to remain in often because then you’ll just be tossing away cash.

The common thinking of a novice close to the river when a large pot is before them is that they should remain in, no matter what it takes, especially because they’ve already bet so much. This is the exact series of compound mistakes that hits players and drives them out of the game. In the long run, you want to donate the least amount of money possible to your opponents’ because this will increase your chances of continuing in the game further. Which roughly translates to focusing on the move at hand and not betting, or raising, simply just because you already have so much invested. If you make a mistake, back out when you can. Don’t let your mistakes aggregate upon one another because then you will quickly find yourself standing in a very deep hole with no way out.

The best way for a poker novice to get better and gain more skill, is by playing opponents who are not as apt. The novice can practice and use different strategies and techniques they would never be able to if they were always playing much better opponents. For instance, how are you going to practice bluffing against a highly skilled professional who knows all the signs and tells; I think it’s safe to say there’s just no way. Besides that, it’s so much easier to win at a table full of morons than it is at a table full of poker pros. In any case isn’t that for the most part what poker is all about? Using the disadvantages and weaknesses of others to churn a profit; wow I guess you could say poker players are somewhat like lawyers.

Not really.

For the most part pros and veterans will argue and say, “That’s not true; poker is all about the strategies and skill involved in the game.” In point, yes but it’s also true that no one would get anywhere in this world if their money was slowly being taken away; and while playing professionals unless you are a lucky novice you can pretty much assume that’s the case. The average novice would not be able to hold his own at a table full of pros and skilled players; beginners lack the experience and dexterity. So, just like with any other game or sport the only way to earn the experience is through practice; lots of practice. What good is the practice however if you’re losing all your cash while doing it?

Another simple reason that novices should play worse players, is because it will help them read moves and understand the game more. While it is true that sometimes terrible poker players are near impossible to read, it does still help a novice by offering examples of what not to do. In any event beginners could always use examples for both sides of an argument, in this case as opposed to things pros do; it helps to see moves that bad players often make so that they can be avoided in future games. It also earns novices the skill of reading other opponents and trying to judge their method of play. The better this individual skill becomes the more likely it will be that you can deduct an opponent’s next move; whether that opponent is either good or bad. It also helps to know what strategy your opponents will use to compliment your own moves.

So, this is for all you poker novices out there. Stop losing your money to the pros and veterans; and go play some bad poker players to hone your skills and bank account total.

The first solution is a classic tactic called “Check Raising”. Check Raising is the simple art of checking your hand with the intention of later raising, in the same round, after an opponent bets. Check raising works best when you are absolutely sure you have one of the highest possible hands on the table; but it can also help you determine what exactly your opponents are trying to do with their own hand. In most cases if your opponent is bluffing; Check Raising will help you figure it out. Before you decide to use this tactic however you must be sure of a few things. The first thing to be sure of is obviously your hand’s strength; the stronger the better. Although, you want to make sure that your hand isn’t too high; otherwise Slow-Play would be the better choice. The next thing to be sure of is whether or not the person behind you will raise the bet after you check. You also want to make sure that the bet you make yourself isn’t too high so that it scares off opponents from calling.

The other solution is known as “Slow-playing”. Slow-playing is when you check or call to keep your opponents in; and plan to make your move in a later round. Most methods of Slow-Play involve only calling or checking for each round until just before the river, and then once there slapping down a large bet. This generally is what many good poker players will use as a strategy when they plan to go all in. As with many strategies in poker this can be a very dangerous move in many cases if you are not sure the hand you hold is the highest.

Both of these methods should be learned and mastered by the poker novice. It should also be noted very early that players should not overuse these strategies; because then they would become very predictable for their opponents. Thus, it is very important to only use these strategies when they are profitable.

One of the biggest benefits of using these strategies is the overall reward size of the pot. Betting big from the beginning will scare opponents into folding their hand; which also means they will not bet. The pot amount will remain small and the entire hand will be wasted. Using these strategies however, even if all the opponents fold earlier on in the hand; a good chunk of the pot will return to you as a reward for your patience.

Your opponents will also not be able to judge what you are doing in later hands if you space out the use of these strategies. This helps the entire game in the long run because it will always keep your opponents guessing; therefore they won’t be so quick to judge your hands strength or weakness. This will enable you to get away with successful bluffs; as well as trick opponents into betting more into the pot.

There is another strategy which will help in the event a good hand is not received right away but is attributed in one of the later rounds. This particular tactic is named the “Overcall”, or in some cases “Fishing for the Overcall”. A good hand is dealt let’s say in the final round, the River. The same thing needs to be done here that is done with the other strategies; you do not want to scare off your opponents. The best course of action in this situation calls for holding out and simply calling another player’s bet, to encourage the other opponents into doing the same. This will raise the overall pot value, and will earn you a bigger heap of chips as opposed to betting big and making everyone dive out of the way.

In a sense, tactics are best utilized as part of a bigger strategy, and not as the goal itself. Many beginning players are guilty of focusing too much on tactics without seeing the bigger picture. This leads to making decisions that may seem to result in the attainment of an immediate goal, but does little to advance the whole course of the game. Realizing that there is a clear need to form an effective strategy does little good at this point, since this realization more often than not results in regurgitating even more tactics instead of formulating an entire strategy for playing.

Interestingly enough, it is the nature of poker as a game that relies heavily on decisions that are made on the spur of the moment that inspires this way of thinking. Nevertheless, thinking only in the short term will effectively hinder your ability to make proper decisions that will serve you best the majority of the time. Poker isn’t really that complex a game, but the lack of an overall strategy can make things considerably more complicated for players that rely solely on tactics to get them through a game. What these players–and indeed all poker players–should realize is that adopting an effective strategy can actually make the decision making process a lot simpler.

It does not really take much to implement an effective poker strategy. In fact it can be as simple as wanting to win or simply wanting to have a few hours of fun at the poker table. Playing for fun as a strategy is simple enough but playing to win can be a bit more complicated depending on your skill level and how much you want to win. This will involve knowing what particular plays to make in the pursuit of your objective.

You can actually compare an effective strategy to a road map in the sense that it will help you see where you are going, the best route to take, and any obstacles that stand in your way. Moving through a game without a strategy is like knowing how to get to the next street but being utterly clueless after that point. Just as studying a road map thoroughly will help you get to your destination quicker with a minimum of fuss, so too will an effective poker strategy help you attain your goal the easiest and most efficient way possible. A holistic poker strategy will allow you to make the smaller decisions easier and ensure that they serve your poker game as a whole.

In truth, it is not really all that difficult to achieve a certain degree of proficiency at poker. In order to be a player that wins the majority of the time however, it is important to always learn, absorb and adapt. And to do that, you need a certain measure of self-control, as well as the ability to analyze any given situation that presents itself. Learning the skills necessary to analyze the various aspects of the game can help you make better-informed decisions when faced with the pressure cooker situation of a real world game.

What almost all successful poker players have in common is the drive and the capability to absorb information on a continuous basis, as well as to analyze all the information that they receive. Watching the other players around the poker table can be a valuable source of information in this regard. If you see another player get caught bluffing for instance, you can take note of his or her actions in order to avoid getting caught doing them yourself in a future game.

As useful as the above example is, experienced poker players will know enough to look beyond such basic detection techniques and possibly even know that the bluffer was bluffing even before he was caught. Of course doing so will take some experience on your part, but it is a necessary skill to develop if you want to be able to play the game successfully for a long time. In this sense, poker is a game of anticipating what the other players around the table are going to do before they even do it…in some cases even before the opponent in question knows that they are going to do it.

Developing this skill will give you the make the right decisions and the right actions when crunch time comes. This will also allow you to set up the scenario so that you are better prepared to react to whatever move your opponent will make. Even if you have only been playing at a particular game for a short period of time, you should train yourself to spot cues that other players are giving out almost immediately. It is a skill that will take a lot of playing experience to be sure, but developing it as early as possible will have many beneficial effects on your game in the long run.

It is unfortunate that most players don’t see it that way and indeed, almost entirely neglect the aspects of poker that don’t have anything to do with winning. The overwhelming focus is on winning the big prize to the neglect of the factors that come into play that prevent that very goal from happening. And more often than not, most players think that the way to achieve this goal is by winning the money from the other players around the table, when the fact of the matter is that virtually all of the money that can potentially be won in a game of is a result of the various actions that go on during the course of an entire game. Placing money into the pot, one player winning some and another losing some more…all of this contribute in some small way to the big prize. In a sense, the money that you can potentially win in poker is the cumulative result of all of these various and sometimes seemingly trivial occurrences.

One thing that would be valuable for any poker player to realize is that to a certain extent, you have to be able to lose in order for you to win. There is virtually no way to ensure that any one player–you included–will win 100% of the time. In fact, you will probably end up losing more of the hands that you are dealt than winning them. Of course this realization isn’t always receive so warmly by the majority of poker players who on the whole absolutely hate to lose. What may make this realization a bit easier to swallow however is the fact that losing with grace actually plays an important role in winning.

How is this so? An obvious example is when you are faced with a particularly brutal run of bad luck, you may find it more beneficial to simply cut your losses and walk away. Far too many times, a poker player who attempts to reverse this run of bad luck by going on playing will end up sinking deeper into a financial hole. Obviously self-control comes into play here, which is one of the most important qualities for any poker player to develop.

The fact of the matter is that you simply have to accept that even big winners have lost more pots than they have won. Keeping things in perspective and knowing when to quit when you are ahead will better prepare you for the future and hopefully an eventual win.