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If you want to become a true Poker genius, the most important thing is to possess a good range of mathematical and observation skills. Psychology and a solid knowledge of the facial micro-expressions range also is a must. To be fair, there's no such thing as an ultimate recipe to win the game. It depends on its type, obviously. Therefore, if you are interested in Texas Hold'em and you are in possesion of a solid strategy how to leave the game as a winner, there is a fat chance that the same strategy might not work with Omaha Poker given the differences of these games. However, there are couple of logical strategies that might help any newbie who recently joined the club of cool and exciting world of Poker.
Four ground rules of any Poker game
- First things first. Keep it cool. Don't tilt, whether you are loosing or winning. Put your shaky emotions aside. Don't let anything cloud your judgment. Set your goals solidly and stay focused. Keep your target in mind and go for it.
- Always build your strategy based upon cards received at first hand. It a simple and a smart thing to do. Don't rush to collect all cards in the world to get a proper combination that might never even happen. Be smart and stay sharp.
- Be ready to analyse your own game in order to calculate the eventuality of building a strong combination from the very start. Analyse every move and never let the whole strategy fall apart.
- Turn your observation skills on. Analyse your opponents. Pay attention to every move they make. Psychology and micro-expressions here is the ultimate key to help you out with this task of guessing and reading opponents' minds. Think about simple hints like: How easily can they be manipulated by bluffing? What's their reaction when a harsh situation strikes? How easily they can be tricked in a fight for a bigger pot at high rates? Learn to evaluate all of those hints in the beginning of the game. The faster you learn to analyse, the better you become at playing Poker.
Learn to assess your chances of winning
Hold on for a moment before throwing yourself in the trades in the very first round. That might be a dicey case, so no rush is needed. Stop for a second and think. Be thorough in analysing your cards. All this really means is that you have to make sure you are able to assess the whole thing altogether: is is going to help you building up a 'strong hand' and wining the whole game?
If you see that your opponents are not in a rush to raise the rates, and are one by one eager to call, this doesn't nessesarily mean that you have to do the same and get rid of the unprofitable combination in your hand. In this case it would be much more better to see the flop: the first 3 cards that could potentially become a part of your strong combination you should always strive to get.
In case you feel that you have the weakest combination possible by far and your opponents are raising the rates in the first round of betting, stop for a second and think.
Hold on a moment to evaluate your chances and if they are not that shiny and advantageous, fold your hand immediately.
It's a good idea to keep in mind these helpful hints:
- Your location relatively to the dealer matters (especially if you play Texas Hold'em);
- The size of your stack (the amount of money you have, that is);
- The experience and professionalism of your opponents.
Mathematical eventualities and analysing winning chances
Please keep in mind that analysing and evaluation of your combinations is important on every stage of the game. Be ready and react quickly to collect more suitable cards from the dealer in order to win.
Let's take as an example a situation like that: imagine a flop in Texas Hold'em, where you have 2 cards of the same suit, 3 community cards on the table and 2 of them are of the same suit. In this case, the rough eventuallity that the next community card will increase the player's hand is 2%.
Now, let's lay our hand on an understanding the eventuality of collecting a Flush. First things first: we need 4 out of 5 cards to get it. So if you already have a good hand, cards of the same suit, that is, there are 9 chances to get the 5th card for your Flush.
There's a good chance to get the card you need on the turn and the river. The final chance is 2x9=18, that is. We also need to keep in mind the probability of 36% that the player will collect a Flush (18x2=36). Surely, these 36% is just an estimated probability, but in order to be good at the game, you need to learn to operate the numbers swiftly like a pro.
Bluff matters
Everybody lies, right? Bluff is a tiny component of a lie that will always keep you afloat as long as you are in a Poker game. All you need to do is to learn the mastery of the bluff. With this tool you can always force trick the opponents with a weaker combination to give up playing after the very first betting round and at the same time you can always raise the size of the pot if you think their combination is slightly better. Do you want to learn how to bluff? Let's take into account this hints, shall we?
- The pace of the game. How aggressive and energetic your opponents are?
- The limits of the game. How limited the bets are?
- The character of the opponents. What is the level of their susceptibility to other people's bluffing? Are they experienced enough?
- What's your potential? What's the value of your combination? How likely it is that these cards will get you the winning title?
Ground rules for bluffing
If you know that you are playing with experienced opponents, use bluffing. On the other hand, if you know for sure your opponents are newbies, there's no point in using the bluffing strategy. Why? They have no clue when exactly to stop raising, calling and they are easily getting involved in the fight with a hope for a good luck even if they have poor potential combinations.
Always bluff on flop if you have a good chance for a Flush. If your combination has 3 cards of the same suit and you raise the rate, the eventuality that your opponents will fold is much higher. Even an experienced player has nothing to oppose to successful bluffing, especially if the probability of the opponents having a Flush is obvious.
Bluff more often if the sequence of trading cards allows you to bet one of the last. You will be able to get a better overview of how your opponents are doing. You will understand the balance of powers in the game.
It's a good idea to bluff on the turn and the river - the last round of trading increases the odds of your bluff to kick out your opponents off the game.
The smaller the number of players, the higher the field for your bluffing to take place. But if the game is played at least by 4 people or more, the probability that one of them will call and then raise is very high.
Never bluff if you were caught bluffing before. It's useless to use the this strategy in a case like that. From that moment on, your opponets will be fully alerted and can easily use your bluffing weapon against you.
Never bluff if you lost a previous game with a good combination. Don't bluff when you've been getting bad luck a few times in a row, otherwise that would be too obvious even for the newbies across the table.
Anslysing opponent's chances
Be good at observation and analysing your opponents' hands. Your analysis must be based on logic, deduction and attention. The ability to pre-evaluate how strong their combinations really are,is the most important component of any Poker strategy.
The better you are at understanding and predicting other people's combinations, the more chances you have to win. You might lack in controlling the size of your bets or misjudging your own hand at the start. But if you know how to analyse the situation properly, you will still leave the game as a sole winner.
Here are the three main things you need to have in order to read your opponents' hands:
- Adopt a new way of thinking: the opponent's hand should be analysed using deduction and a simple logic;
- Stay focused and sharp. Never be distracted by anything during the game. To analyse the situation properly, always pay attention to your opponents' actions.
- Good experience. The more information you have, the better your odds are. The more you play Poker, the better your understanding is getting.
Every action of your opponents provides you with vital information about their hands.
Don't think about their combinations before the flop - it's just a set of 2 random cards. But with each round of a trade, with each subsequent distribution, the situation becomes more clear and obvious. Pay extra attention to their voices, facial expressions... See everything as a signal that may tell you more about the whole picture and use it against them.
It's beneficial to have have good knowledge of human body language, it's by far one of the most useful skills. For example, players with a weak combination have a tendency to create the opposite impression. They behave deliberately confident and look you straight in the eye while betting aggressively. On the other hand, confident opponents behave humblly and quietly.
There is a fairly good solution in order to get better at Poker. Always jump to conclusions after the game. Build your experience by practising.
The variety of betting options will also help you in predicting the course of the following game. Imagine the situation where one of your opponents makes a high raise on the first hand during pre-flop in Texas Hold'em. According to that, we may think that the first hand he had was a good winning combination. Probably something like king or ace + king + ace. Or take another situation, where the opponent may have 2 high cards, for example, an ace and a king.
So in order to collect more information, all you need to do is to re-raise. If your opponent raises, too, it says that he indeed has a strong combination. If not, he was just bluffing. Stay focused and observe more.
Talent is a something that has to be nurtured in a complete solitude. But the character is better formed out there, while playing in the real world.
