Tips for playing poker from professionals. Tips for playing online poker from poker stars pro. Don't cheat on your bankroll management or training when things are going well

Everyone knows that beginners make a lot of mistakes in poker, but they don’t know how to improve their game. Here is a collection of tips for beginners to improve and become a winning poker player.

How to play to become a winning player

• Tight game . Almost every beginner plays poker quite loosely. To become a winning player you need to start playing tight.
• Strive to play tight-aggressive . Tight play is the first step for a beginner to master poker, the next stage is tight aggressive play. By playing this style you will become an unreadable player and will be able to make the most of it. You will play with strong hands, and fold weak hands.
• You should never overestimate yourself and your capabilities . Always look at things with real eyes. You always need to respect not only yourself but also your opponents. Even if you are the best poker player at a given table, this does not mean that you will leave the table with a big jackpot.
• Training and improvement of knowledge . Learning is one of the most tedious and necessary processes. This is comparable to school, college, etc. When you grow in limits you need a dose of additional knowledge. By reading poker materials and using them in practice, you get the foundation that will help you grow both in terms of limits and adapt at the required level.
• Playing on the charts of a specific poker strategy and constantly analyzing both your own and your opponent’s play.
• Don't tilt. The feeling of tilt is hard to define, but financially you will feel it immediately. You'll just start playing a wide range of hands, start playing too loose, and start calling hands a lot. This will all lead to significant losses for your bankroll. In such cases, you need self-control. When you see that you are starting to freak out or lose hands one after another, I recommend simply closing the client and doing something else. In the summer, I recommend riding a bike, which will 100% improve your mood. And on this day, try not to play anymore. Give yourself a break.
• Be patient . While playing according to the chart starting hands you will be playing a relatively narrow range. That’s why you need to have patience and wait for the card you need. This is your key to success.
• Downstreak problem . Many poker players say they have a problem: “that they have a downstreak.” If you are losing, look for mistakes in yourself, analyze your hands, look for leaks in your game, etc. If you play correctly, the so-called thoughts of a downswing will not arise.
• Variance in poker . Variance in poker is a natural phenomenon. When you play poker, you will encounter it more than once, in your ups and downs, the point is that you need to maintain control and composure during the variance. During upstrikes, try to increase your bankroll as much as possible, and during streaks, try to minimize possible losses.
• Choosing the right table . To select a table, you can use either poker software or be guided by your notes on the players.
• Don't overestimate your strength . Many people think that if they have played 2 or more thousand hands in profit, they consider themselves first-class players. This is far from true. In poker, distance is important. If you demonstrate a positive win rate over a long distance - this is 100k and 200k hands, then you can roughly evaluate your skills and abilities.
• Try not to make mistakes . It is impossible to completely eliminate errors from the game, but you should try to minimize their number. The fewer mistakes you make, the more profit you can make from the game.
• Don't play when you're too tired . The game should be fun for you. Positive emotions have a high impact on your game. If you are in a bad mood, or are too tired and start playing poker, then the game is unlikely to be positive for you. Therefore, the basic rule is: “Play only in a positive mood and only for your own pleasure.”
• Don't get distracted while playing . You need to be very focused on your game at the poker table. If something distracts you from the game, it is better to end the session. In the game, maximum concentration is important to analyze the players and your game.
• Don't use bet sizing against regular opponents . If there are fish at the table, then it makes sense to use bet sizing. In other cases we must remain unreadable.
• Play with a card and learn to count correctly

Given here poker tips- the result of the extensive gaming experience of your predecessors. It's your choice whether to follow poker tips or not, but you'll make more money if you follow the tips.

Tip 1. Watch your opponents and write notes. The importance of this for success cannot be overstated. Especially while you are playing without special programs that display opponents' statistics, notes will be the most important guide for making decisions in difficult situations.

Tip 2: Notice the hand ranges your opponents are playing and how they play those hands. Over time, you must learn to accurately determine what your opponent can play with, and, do not get hung up on specific ones, you must play against the range, the set of hands that he may have.

Over time, you will be able to change your game to suit specific opponents. For example, if you notice that a player is raising half of his hands, you will realize that you can avoid folding some combinations after such a raise that should not be played after an unknown opponent raises. Or, conversely, if a person bets only on AA and KK, then you will not answer him with JJ or AK.

Tip 3: Your goal is to not butt heads with anyone unless you have a monster on your hands. Therefore, without a doubt, part with even fairly strong hands like AQ after your opponents raise. When you get a statistics program, you will be able to more individually adjust your game to specific opponents. Without statistics, notes are indispensable; they must be written, recording all the characteristics of the opponents (however, even with statistics, notes must be written).

Tip 4: Avoid bluffing. If you don't bluff at all, you will win significantly more than if you do it too often (especially against unsuitable opponents, which is the majority at the micros). Actually, in the latter case, you will simply lose.

Tip 5. Do not elevate your opponents to the rank of personal enemies who need to be punished - this only leads to losses. If someone has moved your premium hands three times in a row on all kinds of garbage, this does not mean at all that you need to react to every entry into the bank of this opponent and also start playing on garbage. Your task is not to win against anyone in particular, but simply to play optimally in order to win at a distance. Any deviations from the optimal game are equivalent to a loss. In the same way, there is no need to compete with anyone and look for equal opponents. The goal of the game is to win money, and weak opponents - the fish we love so much - are better suited for this.

Tip 6. If you are outplayed and your opponents are uncomfortable for you, don’t prove anything to yourself, leave the table.

Tip 7. A short stack player's strongest weapon is all-in, which very often forces opponents to fold stronger hands than you have, or less cautious opponents to call you with weaker hands. But you need to use this weapon wisely - limit yourself to the cases described in the Strategy. Be especially careful about all-in when playing with a larger stack. What is profitable with a short stack can lead to losses with a larger one.

Tip 8: Stay strategic when determining when to fold a hand if your raise is followed by a reraise. In most cases you will have to click Fold. And don’t let it bother you that you’ve already put money in the bank. Once you place a bet, you must say goodbye to it in advance. It's not your money anymore, and you don't have to consider how much common bank exactly your bets.

Tip 9. In short-term poker, a lot is determined by chance. but the art of the game is to lose little in unsuccessful situations, and to win a lot in successful ones. Therefore, especially at the micro-limits, try to increase the pot only in cases where you have a really strong hand. Give away small pots easily (for example, you need to learn how to fold even top pair, especially with a bad kicker, or low, when freeplaying). You cannot answer out of curiosity - to find out what your opponent had there. This leads to losses. But step on the gas when you really have good combination. There is practically no room at low limits - there your bets will be called just fine as is. Just wait for that strong hand.

Tip 10. A good player differs from a bad one in that it is almost impossible for him to win much - he simply folds weak hands. Set a goal so that it is impossible for you to win much. Suppose you fold a weak hand five times, even suspecting that your opponent is bluffing, but on the sixth you get a strong one and recoup everything with interest.

Tip 11. When in doubt, remember the main poker wisdom: The most profitable button is Fold. Always look for a reason to fold your hand.

So, first the strategy plays for you - play about 30-40 thousand hands exactly according to the strategy, eliminate mistakes, get used to it, so that most decisions are made “automatically”. You must internalize the appropriate one as a stereotype.

After this, study articles on further development of the strategy, and begin to carefully apply the acquired knowledge in practice.

Good luck at the poker tables!

All professionals were once also completely inexperienced.

The Fundamentals You Must Implement in Your Game to Become a Strong Player and Succeed

Sometimes it is difficult for a novice player to understand all the information about poker that can be found on the Internet today. And I just want to find clear, simple, specific advice, written in understandable language and applicable in real life.​

The right start in poker is very important. It is during this period that you will develop poker habits and skills that will be necessary in the future. If you develop in your game wrong habits. You will find it very difficult to get rid of them in the future, and they will have a serious detrimental effect on your distance performance. Therefore, in this article we will discuss basic tips for beginning players that will help organize the right start to their poker career.

1. Play a small number of hands

For beginners in poker, it is very important to learn how to play tight. That is, you only need to play relatively strong starting hands. What do I mean by "relatively strong hands"?

Here's a basic rule to help you play 6 and 9 player cash games:

To make it easier for you to understand what exactly the 20% and 15% starting hand ranges are, I will provide approximate charts here. All hands marked in yellow are hands that are recommended to be played.

So in practice this means that you will have to fold 80-85% of the starting hands that you receive at the beginning of the hand. It may seem unrealistic, but listen to this advice.

There's a reason why it's best for poker newbies to stay very tight in their game. If you start playing with a wider range right away, you will find yourself in difficult situations more often and forced to make difficult decisions. You can get into a situation where you end up with top pair or even a flush, and your opponent has a higher kicker or a higher flush.

So accept that early in your poker career you will have to fold, and fold a lot.

2. Be aggressive with the hands you play

So, you know the approximate range of starting hands that you are recommended to play. How exactly should you play them? There is only one answer - aggressively.

This means that it is advisable for you to enter the hand with a raise. If you are the first player to enter the hand after the blinds, do not limp, be sure to raise. I would recommend you raise to 3BB online. And in live poker you can bet even more.

Don't allow yourself to play passively; playing aggressively will help you take control of the hand right away. And then on the flop you can continue your aggression (continue bet), and very often you will win the pot without further struggle.

3. Play against weak poker players

The most important key to success in the poker world is to look for weaker players and play as many hands as possible with them. You can often hear phrases like “sweet table”, “profitable game”. It means. That there are many weak players at the table - fish or recreational players, as they are also called. These are players who play much more than 20% of starting hands, some even play “any two”. They also often limp into the game and play passively postflop.

In poker, it is against such opponents that you will get the maximum profit, because they constantly make big mistakes. On the contrary, it will be much more difficult for you to make a profit against experienced tight opponents, because they play deliberately and make mistakes much less often.

Therefore, it is very important to learn to look for and notice recreational players, and then take advantage of them. weaknesses. And table selection, which is an essential skill for any poker professional, will help you with this.

4. Don't get carried away by bluffing

Very important point When playing against weak players, do not bluff them often. And there is an obvious reason for this - such players love to call, and will often call your bluff even with very weak hands.

If you raised preflop, you can very often c-bet on the flop and it won't be a mistake. But if your bet is called, you need to be able to stop in time.

You shouldn't blindly barrel on the turn and river, especially if you have nothing at all. Many players spend a lot of money trying to bluff weaker players. It's important to have the discipline to simply check or fold when you have absolutely nothing and are up against an auto-caller. This way you will lose much less and can win in another hand.

5. Bet value often

Excellent quality of poker - for every yin there is a yang. In other words, for every minus there is a plus. And if weak players love to call so much and therefore it is almost impossible to bluff against them, there is an advantage to this - you can constantly bet value, and they will call them.

If you're up against a recreational player whose favorite action is calling, don't be afraid to go overboard with your value bets. Often he will call you with a low pair and even with an ace-high. So if you have top pair or even middle pair with a strong kicker, it's your time to value bet.

Such players will be a big source of profit for you, and this main reason, which is why you need to play a lot against weak players. The fish will play very wide ranges and will happily pay you for your frequent value bets.

6. Play only within your bankroll

This is one of the fundamental tips for new players - to play according to your bankroll. What is a bankroll, you may ask? This is the total amount of money you have allocated exclusively for poker. This applies to both offline and online.

Personally, I suggest having at least 20 buy-ins for the game you prefer to play, which means if you are playing in a $50 buy-in game, you need to have a minimum of $1000 at your disposal for your bankroll. There is an obvious reason for this - poker is characterized by upswings and downswings (the so-called swings). There is even a technical term that describes the volatility of poker - variance. Sometimes you can lose 5 buy-ins in one session.

If your bankroll consisted of only five BI, you would lose it all in one session and would not be able to afford to continue playing. This is a common mistake of new players - to take risks, enter a more expensive game than their bankroll allows and lose everything.

7. Make sure you know all the rules well

In poker, like in any other game, you cannot do without knowing all the rules. First, you need to learn how to deal with combinations, understand “what beats what.” That is, you must understand, like 2x2=4, that a flush beats a straight, and a full house beats them both. But that's not all, you have to understand betting, showdowns, side pots, different tournament formats, etc.

There are many different resources for learning in the modern poker world - from books and forums, to training videos and hand analysis. If you prefer to play online, you can start taking your first steps in poker by playing for play money. There's no shame in this. We all started and learned combinations at some point. And there's nothing wrong with doing this on play money tables where you won't be risking anything.

All online poker rooms offer play money games. There you will get used to the game and understand all the rules in detail. But remember that you cannot win real money there. And the goal of every professional grinder is to make money from poker. So once you understand the basics and feel comfortable, move on to playing for real money. Otherwise you might get stuck playing it safe play chips for a very long time, and lose precious time.

8. Don't get carried away with draws

There is a mistake that is very common among beginning and inexperienced players - they love to play draws and are willing to pay a lot for them. Here it is important to understand the concepts of basic poker mathematics, and above all with pot odds.

You can call your wood hand, only if the pot odds allow it. That is, your equity (chances of making a winning hand) should be higher than the existing this moment pot odds.

9. Don't play for high stakes

This advice is directly related to playing with a bankroll. You need to play within your bankroll. But even if you have a large bankroll, you should not go to limits for which you do not have enough experience.

If you are just starting out in your poker career, I would advise you to start with the lowest limits - both online and offline. Most often online this limit will be NL2. This game has a maximum buy-in of $2, and the blinds are 1 and 2 cents. You might get bored at such low limits. But this should only give you an incentive to quickly beat this limit and move on.

This game will help you form the right poker habits, and most of all, discipline. If you, without experience and with money, immediately go to sky-high limits, the regulars will only be happy to see you there. But for you it will end quite quickly and sadly. Don't overestimate your strengths and abilities. You can’t do without experience, distance and long-term work on yourself in poker.

10. Don't play too many tables at once

Beginner players should not rush and quickly move on to multitabling. Online multitabling is very profitable and thanks to it you can multiply your winnings. But for this there is necessary condition– you must be prepared for this.

Each additional table takes away some of your concentration and you may start making mistakes. Therefore, you should start the game from one table. And when you feel confident, comfortable and even a little bored, only then add the next table. It is also recommended to add tables one at a time. This way you can gradually get used to the new format of the game, and you can stop in time if you become uncomfortable playing and you notice some mistakes due to loss of focus.

11. Understand the importance of position

Position is one of the keys to success in poker. You need to try to play it out as best you can. more hands from the position, and then your winnings will increase. When you are the last to make a decision, you have an undeniable advantage - information, and thanks to this you can increase your profit over the course. Information about your opponent's actions will allow you to take control of the hand completely into your own hands. You can place a value bet or make a bluff bet. You will be able to check back and see a free map on the next street. Everything will be in your hands.

But your opponent will have to act first and guess exactly what you will do. So try to play a lot of hands from the button and from the cut-off - from late positions, and be more careful when you are out of position.

12. Use poker software (and especially the HUD)

Some poker professionals win without using poker software. But if you are a beginner player and want to take all the steps to improve your results, you can't do without poker trackers. Such programs will definitely help you take more right decisions, so you should definitely try them.

Poker trackers collect all the necessary information from the hands you play and convert it into convenient statistics. This will help you generate useful reads on your opponents.

Using a HUD becomes a necessary part of the game if you switch to multi-tabling - simultaneous play at several tables. Multitabling requires making many decisions quickly at once, and it will be very difficult for you to keep track of all the events and actions on all the tables at once. Using poker software will help you quickly classify your opponents as fish or regulars, and you can build a suitable counter-strategy against each of them.

13. Have fun

This advice seems frivolous, but in fact it is very important. You need to learn to love poker and enjoy the process of playing. Poker is an exciting game with various formats (from cash games to tournaments, from heads-up to MTT). You need to find the most suitable format for you, and you need to enjoy what you do.

There are strong ups and downs in poker. Sometimes you will jump for joy, and sometimes you will fall into deep depression. A professional grinder plays a lot, and you simply won’t be able to play that much if you don’t enjoy poker. Your love for the game is what will help you cope with failures and move on, straight to victories.

We have formulated for you something that you may not have even thought about at the start of your career.

Many beginning poker players, having mastered the simplest basics obtained from articles or our training courses, take everything for granted and begin to play mechanically. In other words, almost thoughtlessly. Yes, they follow the basic rules of their poker strategy, but they become so obsessed with them that stop thinking about non-standard situations and make a huge number of mistakes in them. It is these situations that are not very obvious at first glance that we will talk about in this article. I will talk about them in the form of formulated rules.

Rule one. Trust your opponents

Even if you have a very strong postflop poker hand, like top pair or overpair, sometimes you will still have to fold it. If your opponent possibly has stronger hands and desperately proves their presence to you with his bets, don’t risk it.

For example, you continuation bet on the flop, your opponent calls, you bet again on the turn and you get a raise. It’s worth curbing your ardor and immediately wondering if there could be stronger hands out there? If the answer is yes, you need to throw it away. Of course, each situation is individual; you should rely on poker statistics. If your opponent is tight and enters the game only with premium hands, then his raise will be much easier to believe than raises from a loose “maniac” who bets a lot and raises left and right. By the way, the later in the hand you get a raise, the more likely it is not a bluff. You can often get a test raise on the flop, especially on a dry board that is difficult for both of you to hit. But on the river the percentage of bluff raises is much lower.

In this hand, Dominic Panca disciplinedly folded his pocket tens, believing in the strong hand of his opponent, who made a 4-bet in the big blind:

Many players lose big pots because they cannot fold their seemingly strong combination. Even an overpair that appears to be the nuts can be weaker than your opponent's hand and will sometimes have to be folded. It is worth looking not only at your hand and at the board, but also paying attention to whether a particular opponent can specific situation there will be stronger hands with which he will play like this.

Rule two. Path of Least Variance

Sometimes in a hand you encounter an extremely difficult situation, the right solution to which you cannot find right here and now, during the game. In this case, you should choose the least dispersion option, that is, the option with the most stable result. If the choice is between a raise or a call, you choose call. As a result of calling, on average, less money (chips) is won or lost, and therefore the result is more stable. If you need to choose between calling or folding, you play fold. It is better to give up without understanding what is happening than to accept the risky call option for this example.

Bertrand "Elky" Grospellier 3-bet with QJ suited and simply check-folds the flop with top pair! It is unlikely that he is very familiar with his opponent’s game, and therefore played the least dispersively and most reliably. And it turned out to be right!

Later, after the session, you should definitely analyze such hands, yourself or with a trainer. It's improving your game in these situations that will make you a better player.

In fact, at micro-stakes, all winning actions should be very simple and obvious. If you catch a strong combination, we bet. If we’re not caught, we give up (but not always). Weak players will do all the work for you.

Rule three. Unknown = strong

This rule follows from the previous one. In order not to swing the variance and not make borderline decisions, you must believe that the unknown opponent who has just joined the game is a strong and good regular. Think this way until these fears are confirmed or he proves otherwise.

Therefore, if he starts betting a lot, raising a lot and generally showing a lot of aggression, without a strong hand, don’t try to oppose him with anything. You will be able to adjust by increasing the distance and obtaining more reliable statistics on your opponent.

Rule four. Minimum creativity, maximum reliability

There is no particular need to bluff at the micro-stakes. Players sitting there, in principle, may not feel responsible for their money. They are capable of anything. Including calling your bets on very weak hands. Therefore, you should not bluff often. It is better to wait for a strong hand and win money for sure.

Of course, you can play semi-bluff, that is, when your hand has good potential for improvement. This could be a flush draw or a straight draw (often), or large overcards (less often).

You don't need a pure bluff, say, on the flop, when not a single turn or river in the world will help your hand improve.

Rule five. Think bigger

Against the weakest opponents, everything is simple: catch a hand and win. Against the strong - you have to think about what hands he might have in a given situation.

Statistics on your opponent, the size of his bets and his actions, as well as an understanding of the various board structures will help with this. Try not to make things up a large number of weak hands that your opponent could bluff with here. On the contrary, think about what strong combinations he may have here.

Steve O'Dwyer calls a continuation bet on the flop on a dry board without matching ace high. This is quite normal for heads-up. But after his opponent checked on the turn and all-in on the river, Steve thought: “What kind of hand can I play like that? "Unable to find a logical answer, he called and won:

Think: “Why is he playing like that here? Why does he bet in one size or another? What combinations does he have more here, ready-made or not (draws or bluffs)? How good is my hand against his range of hands?”

Rule six. Work on your game and improve it

Poker cannot be played mechanically, as I said at the beginning of the article. Especially at a time when you do not yet have much experience and theoretical knowledge. Think about every hand, analyze it as deeply as possible, stay focused on the game, don’t get distracted. In each hand, with a large pot or a small one, you need to find the most correct solutions.

It is better to end a session early, in which many difficult and controversial situations occurred, and think about them, than to continue the game, constantly returning to them and replaying them in your head over and over again. It's okay if in a particular hand you come to the wrong conclusion and make a mistake. It’s much scarier to not think about distribution at all. In order to play better next time in a similar situation, work on your game. Analyze difficult hands and ask your coach for an opinion. Think a lot, learn to think.

In principle, the last rule applies universally to all the previous ones - let’s summarize the article with this simple thought :)

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