Five Winning Poker Strategies

Now that you know the rules of community poker games like Texas Hold’em and Five Card Draw, you need to nail down the basic strategies to read and beat your opponents. Poker is a skill game and these five strategies will help you gain an advantage over the competition.

Aggressive play: you start the wagering with an opening bet or you raise your opponent’s bet. This establishes dominance in the hand. Do it with a strong hand because if you overuse it, the other players will label you as a loose player and use it against you.

Bluff: tricking other players by betting with a poor hand. The goal is to get other players out of the hand. You do this by betting big to scare them off, even if they have a better hand. The odds of high cards in the hand dwindle as players exit the hand and your odds of winning it get better.

Check-raise: risky but lucrative strategy where you check with a strong hand. By passing to the next player, someone else will have to start the opening bet and then you can raise them when the action comes back to you. It’s like a slow play or a bluff where you deceive your opponents.

Protection play: opposite move of a check-raise. You wager a lot early to protect your hand and scare off others. It’s best done with a strong yet vulnerable hand like a pair of Jacks when there is a possible straight on the board. It protects your hand.

Slow play: opposite move of bluffing but also protects your hand. In this strategy, you are trying to keep other players in the hand by staring with a small bet. It’s best done if you have a high pocket pair for your hole cards in Texas Hold’em Poker. Other players will stay in just to see the flop. Then, you keep reeling them in with small bets until they are pot committed. Once they have put in enough chips to be pot committed, you hit them with a big bet and the hand is yours.