It’s time to continue with my Poker Strategies guide and talk about Poker Skills.

Poker Skills

Poker Skills #1: Maths

A good poker player will know the probabilities of a game. Here is an example: they will know you have around a 1 in 8.5 chance of hitting a set when holding a pocket pair, & that you will have around a 1 in 3 chance of completing a flopped flush draw by the river. (Check out my recent post about Poker Jargon if you didn’t understand that).

Clever players understand the importance of outs. Outs are the number of cards that will greatly improve your poker hand. Go ahead: count your outs, times them by 2, then add 1. That’s roughly the percentage shot you have at hitting. Clever, huh?

Fantastic players can figure out the odds of the pot. Knowing outs doesn’t mean a thing unless it’s turned into calculated betting. If you know you have a 10% chance of hitting, what do you do?

Mathematic skills are basic knowledge. Anyone who doesn’t fully understand these skills should definately not play in a game for real money.

Poker Skills #2: Discipline

Great poker players will expect an advantage. What separates a winning poker player from a fish? A fish does not expect to win, but a poker player does. A fish is content playing roulette or the slots: he just hopes he gets lucky. A great poker player never hopes to get lucky. He just hopes other poker player don’t get lucky while he’s playing.

Good poker players understand that each game needs a different discipline. A disciplined no-limit player can very well be a silly limit player and the other way round. An example is: a disciplined limit hold’em player has solid preflop skills. When there isn’t alot of action preflop, they only play the better hands. When a lot of people are limping in, they will make a loose call with a suited connector or other speculative hand.

A good poker play with discipline knows when to play and when to quit. They know that they aren’t perfect. When a disciplined player makes mistakes, they learn from it. They don’t blame others.

Poker Skills #3: Psychology

A great player is not self-centered. They may not care about anyone but themselves but when a great poker professional walks into the room, they will always empathize with their opponents. The poker pro will always try to have an answer for these three questions:

1. What does my opponent have?
2. What does my opponent think I have?
3. What does my opponent think I think he has?

Knowing the answer to these is the 1st step. Manipulating the answers is the 2nd & definately the more important step. If you have a pair of kings and your opponent has a pair of aces. If you both know what each of you has, and you both know that you know what the other player has, then why play a game of poker in the first place? A poker professional will manipulate the answers to questions 2 & 3 by slowplaying, fastplaying, & bluffing in order to confuse their opponent.

Poker Skills #4: Understanding Risk vs. Reward

Great Poker players are willing to take a risk if the reward is high, but only if the expected return is higher than the risk itself.

Most importantly is they understand the risk v reward nature of the poker game outside of the room. They will know how much bank they will need to play, and how much $$ they need in reserve to cover other expenses.

Put your Poker Skills to the test and try playing online poker.

This post is mainly for Poker Beginners. Ever wonder what a Flop or a River is in terms of a Poker game? This post will deal with those poker terms and many more so without further adieu.

Poker Jargon

Board Cards: These are the cards that are placed in the middle of the poker table which are shared by all who playing.

Flop: A Flop is the 1st 3 cards in Texas Hold’em.

Preflop: This is the round after you are dealt your 2 hole cards and there aren’t any cards on the table yet.

Turn: The turn is the 4th board card that comes out in Texas Hold’em.

River: The river is the 5th & last card that comes on the board in Texas Hold’em.

Draw: A Draw basically means hoping to make your hand better with the cards that will come to play on the board. So: you are on a draw when you are wanting cards to come out on the board to give you a complete hand.

Pot Odds: The Pot Odds are the odds you are get when you are drawing.

Implied Odds: This is the same as the pot odds, but it takes into account your bets in the future. So, you could call a bet at the flop, but have implied odds of making larger bets on later games if you hit your draw.

Limit Poker: Limit Poke is with fixed size bets. In a $2 – $4 limit, all rasies & bets are $2 in the first 2 games, and all rasies & bets are $4 in the last 2 games.

Outs: Outs are cards which can make your hand better.

Position: This is where you will sit at the table. The dealer will have the best position as he bets last and so has knowledge of what the other players might have in their hand. The worst position is the small blind as that player has to act 1st.

Longhand: Longhand is a poker match with 7 or more players.

Shorthand: A shorthand is a poker match that has 6 or less players.

If you found this post on Poker Jargon useful or have any questions, please leave me a comment.

One of the many questions I get asked being a Rookie Poker Player, is “how do you win at poker?”. This is a question that there really isn’t a simple answer to, other than: Poker Strategies.

Poker Strategies

In the game of Poker you need to have a strategy to win. There’s beginners luck, but that won’t get you anywhere near winning the amounts of money people win who have Poker Strategies.

It’s my aim to write as many poker strategies and tips on my blog to help all you Poker Players, old and new, to win fortunes consistently. If you’d like me to write about anything specific be sure to comment on this post and I’ll see what I can do.

For now, let’s continue this post with the list of Poker Strategies articles that are coming within the next few weeks.

Poker Strategies: Poker Jargon
Poker Strategies: Poker Skills
Poker Strategies: Deception
Poker Strategies: Multiple Tables

Plus much more…! Be sure to check back for my extensive guide to Poker Strategies.

Before I started playing online poker I read magazines and blogs looking for advice and tips.  There are literally thousands of poker-related blogs on the Internet and many of them rehash each other and the same old content each day.  Each month the magazines offer you tips and guides on the best and worst hands etc.

The thing about poker (and in fact most rule-based games) is that the rules don’t change and what hand is best doesn’t change.  So if you play the odds and only the odds, then you’ll never beat the best.

I believe I was reading Poker Player magazine and they said that rookies will all too often concentrate on the odds of a hand for an indication of how to play.  I sub-consciously took this on board myself.  Basically since I had no interest in learning dozen of common odds before even hitting the tables I let common sense take the lead.

Starting out is fairly simple.  Learn the basic rules of poker: what wins and in what order.  Learn table etiquette and blinding.  Then find a poker website where you can play for free (I use www.a-winning-hand.com) before depositing money.

Next steps find a table where the blinds are low and preferably table-limits too.  Then start playing.  If you are playing for free, having low amounts on the table will help accustom you to playing your first money hands.

Before you start looking for betting patterns and tells, simply play a few hands and get a feel for how the game flows.  You’ll start to learn the hands that work and those that don’t and this is the sub-conscious learning of odds that I employ.  Common sense dictates that a pair of 2s when you enter the flop is not as strong as any other pair but when you are playing against 3 people it is a lot better hand than when you are playing 7 others.

So my advice is this, learn the basics and start in the free rooms – this way you won’t be left wondering WTF after entering the flop with a pair of Kings only to loose half your stack just because you didn’t listen to your thoughts.  If you made that play with real money you’d be really unhappy and it would affect your play for next few hands at least.

Once you know your plays that work and you can bet without thinking too much about how impressive your hand is you can move onto reading other people’s play.  Some say that you can’t read people at online poker – but any regular player will tell you that there are still tells in online poker.

The next stage is to enter the paying rooms and don’t be afraid to take this step.  What is important to remember is that the rules are the same whether you are playing for money or for free.  I know this sounds obvious but it is surprising how many players change their tactics and style of play just because money is involved. 

Again start low to get over the initial nervousness and watch out for players looking to take money off rookies.  Try to find tables where the standard of play suits yours so you can ease yourself in.  If you don’t then there is the possibility that you’ll get fed up and give up.  Having spent time working on your new talent it’d be a shame to stop now wouldn’t it?