Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Necessary Steps To Winning at Poker

By Poker Cracker


There is no one strategy for winning a poker game. Since the luck of the draw is a major factor in winning at cards, poker is one of the hardest games to master. Many people have become master poker players so it is not an impossible dream.

The underlying strategy of playing poker is to play as if you can see your opponent's hand. Throughout all the other points made this is the key to it all. If you play as though you know what he has, then you are playing carefully and strategically.

Beating the pots odds by having a higher chance of winning is one of the hardest poker strategies to understand. For example, if the amount to stay in the game is $20 and the pot is at $100 then the ratio is 5:1. The amount of the pot to the amount required to stay in the game is the pot odds.

The chance of winning odds must be better than the pot odds. In this example, say there are only four people betting. The chance of winning is 4:1 making the chance of winning higher than that of the pot odds.

To either break even or slim down the amount of players, this ration must be met. The chance of winning is greater than the pot odds if four or fewer players are playing, however, if there are more players, the chance of winning is lessened. Those who pay attention to this ratio have a better chance of staying in the game than those who don't.

This strategy is the hardest to understand because the amount of quick thinking raises as the amount of the pot raises. There is a time limit in most poker games, which makes it harder to figure out the ratio and still have time to make your play. It is a good strategy to take your time, but not a good idea to use all that time to figure out the mathematics of the game.

Deception is the most essential trait a person needs in order to be good at poker. Two key elements of deception are bluffing and slow playing. Also helpful are reading people's poker faces and knowing their tells.

Bluffing is the principle strategy in deception. To bluff another player into believing you do not have whatever hand you have is the best tactic for winning. You bluff the other players by how big or how little you bet on each turn or hand.

Make sure you have a winner of a hand and then bet just above the minimum of the flop and the turn. Never begin a hand by betting too heavily because you opponents will see this as a tell. When you have a bad hand but still want to win, bet smoothly to make the other players think you have a better hand that you really do.

If the player has a very bad hand but bets very low to make the other players keep betting, he is a slow player. Once the other players are deep into the hand and it has become dangerous to stay in, the slow player will continue to bet until the others fold. Slowly making the pot bigger is a very easy deception, unless this has become your tell.

Betting too big when you have a good hand is giving off hints of your strategy, which is not the key to winning at poker. What cards are dealt is the majority of the chances of winning therefore, these strategies do not always work. If used right, these strategies will help you to win if just by eliminating other players.

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