Poker Tips from Pro

Many pros play the game just for fun, but then there are a few who have adapted this game as a source of living and play poker professionally. Professional poker players are the best to seek advice from for improving your game as they not only give you tips about enhancing your skills but also tell you how to manage your bankroll. Successful poker pros share the real-life experiences that have helped them in making a profit from poker.

In this section, we bring you a few tips from pros to keep in mind while playing your next game. So, here we go-

Bankroll management

If you think that here we will discuss tips on how to make a hand or how to bet, then you are entirely wrong. Pros will never tell you about the mechanism of the game as it is homework you must do before reaching out for their help. They will tell you about much bigger strategies and concepts involved in the game. And, one such approach is bankroll management.

Each time you sit on a table with a certain amount of money, you want to make it last and grow. You won’t want to quickly run out of the money and eventually leave the table bearing a loss. This is where bankroll management comes in.

Almost every poker pro advice to make sure the stakes you are playing are affordable in the long term. So, you must consider the stakes while playing poker. Don’t play with stakes that are too low for you as if they don’t mean much, and you might not take the game seriously. Also, don’t play with stakes that are too high as there is a greater risk of losing a substantial amount of money.

Therefore, always calculate in your mind the amount of money you have in chips and how much you can bet to be in the game for the long run.

Identify your opponent

Apart from bankroll management, identity or knowing your opponent is another crucial task while playing poker. You must have an idea about your opponent whether he is a beginner, intermediate or pro. Plus, you should also know his playing style whether he plays tight, aggressive or passive. Start noticing their actions – if they act fast when they have a stronger hand or moving slowly with a weaker hand, do they call or raise the bet in each round, etc.

These little things will help you get an idea about your opponent and enable you to predict their move a bit. It’s not that you will ultimately get to know their next move, but it will give you some idea of what they are capable of doing.

Concentrate on one game type at a time

This is a tip basically for beginners who have just started out playing poker. There’s always confusion whether to play cash games or tourneys. As per pros, concentrating on one form of the game is the best thing when you’re a beginner. Choose one thing between tourneys and cash games and learn it to the extent that you always feel comfortable whenever you are playing a session.

Both tourneys and cash games have a different mechanism and require a different set of skills. First of all, know the differences and then choose accordingly. If you play conservatively, tourneys can be beneficial for you while if you love playing lots of hands, then cash games can suit your nature.

Always start “tight.”

Many poker pros consider this tactic effective in the long run. Playing conservatively or tightly, in the beginning, helps in knowing your opponents and also enables you to understand the table. This also helps you set a perception of yours, which can you use as per your convenience in later stages. If you start playing tight in the beginning, your opponents will get a picture of your conservative gameplay, and it can help you in bluffing at later rounds.

Also, playing tight and not taking unnecessary risks at the start saves a lot of fuel for the game when you need to play aggressively.

The choice of table

This is another useful tip by pros for the beginners. Playing at the right table is very important, especially if you have just started out playing. If you are playing poker just for a change or recreation or pleasure, then it is fine this poker tip doesn’t necessarily apply to you. But, if winning is at all a priority for you, then you must consider this tip.

Always remember, you don’t make a profit in poker against good players. It is the worst players who help you make a significant profit. So, if you don’t find somebody at the table that is playing worse than you, then you quickly need to search for another table. It’s always easy to make a profit against players who are making fundamental errors and give away their money over the long term.

Finally, as the saying goes – winners don’t do anything different, they do the things differently, the same is the case in Poker too. It’s the little adjustments you make into your game which create the difference and become fruitful in the long run.