Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Simple Strategies Help to Win at Poker

By Poker Cracker


Poker does not have just one strategy for winning. A major factor in winning, luck of the draw makes poker one of the hardest games to master. It is not an impossible dream as many people have mastered it.

Playing as though you can see your opponent's cards is an underlying strategy of playing poker. After learning all the other points to the game, this is the one key to winning it all. You are playing carefully and strategically if you play this way.

One of the strategies, the hardest to understand, of playing poker is beating the pot odds by having a higher chance of winning. The ratio of the amount of the pot to the amount required to stay in the game is the pot odds. If the pot is $100 and the amount needed to bet is $20 then the ratio is 5:1.

The pot odds must be less than that chance of winning odds. That the example mentioned, imagine there are four players betting. The number of players makes the chance of winning 4:1, which is higher than the pot odds.

The reason this strategy is the most important is because if the player wants to stay in the game long enough to either break even or slim down the amount of other players, this ratio needs to be met. If, however, the player bets on the 5:1 ratio and there are five players left, the players chance of winning, instead of just breaking even, are lessened. Paying attention to these odds gives the player an advantage to those who don't.

The amount of quick thinking raises as the amount of the pot raises which makes this a very hard strategy to grasp. To still have time to make your play while the timer is running; don't take up too much time figuring out the odds. A good strategy in poker is taking your time, but with the time limit being so short, it is not a good idea to take up all that time figuring out the odds when you should be figuring out your hand.

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.

Every player needs to be able to perform the principle strategy of poker, which is bluffing. The best tactic for winning is being able to bluff your opponents. How big or how low you bet is a way to bluff your opponents.

If you have a surefire winner of a hand, bet just above the minimum for the first couple of flops. Never bet too big because then that becomes your tell. If you have a very bad hand and the window isn't showing anything that could possibly be an addition to a good hand, bet smoothly to make the other players believe you have a high pair hidden.

A non-aggressive deception is where the player has a very bad hand but bets very low to make the other players keep betting, this is called slow playing. The slow player continues to bet low until the other players feel the hand is too dangerous, because they are now deep into the hand, and fold. A very easy deception, pushing the other players to fold by slowly making the pot bigger is a good strategy unless you've used it too often and it has become a 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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