Good Poker Tips for Beginners

Choose a Game to Specialize In

Don't be afraid to experiment. You want to make sure you are playing your best game, but once you figure out which game you should be playing you should spend the majority of your time trying to master that game. This poker tip will help you increase both your win rate and your consistency at the table.

It will eventually become important to diversify and learn some of the other games because there are some great concepts you can learn from. However, this should come later in poker after you have learned to beat one of the games consistently.

Track Your Performance

Even just some minimal record keeping can help you figure out what you need to work on in order to improve your results. There are numerous poker tracking software programs available online.

Find the Fish

The majority of your profits at these stakes will come from weaker opponents who don't play as well as you. You don't need to out-smart them in order to win their money, you just have to survive long enough for them to give it to you. Don't be afraid to switch tables.

Start Differentiating Between Your Opponents

One of the first steps to beating poker at this level is learning to tailor your game to your opponents. This means treating certain situations differently according to your opponents. In its simplest form, this means pushing around tight players, and giving loose players room to make mistakes. This is a good poker tip for beginners and it can really help you beat the lower stakes poker games.

Visit The Large Poker Forums

This is a good place to see what sorts of strategies other players are using who have beaten the low stakes. You don't have to frequent the forums, but it's a great idea to take some time to read through some of the threads. You'll find some great poker tips there and you can also see what some of your opponents are up to.

Watch Televised Poker

Not because it will teach you great poker, but because many of your opponents are watching and trying to imitate. This is where a lot of people get the inspiration to play online poker so you will come across a lot of WPT viewers at the lower stakes.

Don't Multi-Table Until You Are Ready

If you haven't figured out how to beat the low stakes games consistently, you really need to be applying some thought when you analyze each hand at the table. Multi-tabling is something you should do once you figure out how to play profitably. This will usually increase your profits to some extent. If you are a losing player, you will just wind up losing even faster.

Envision the possible outcomes of a hand before you make decisions

This is especially true when you see the turn card. There is usually less than 10 possible paths from the turn to the end of a hand. If you can divide your opponents range of possible cards into a few different categories, you will know which paths through the rest of the hand are most likely. If you know what is going to happen, you can often stop yourself from going down a losing path.

Don't sit down at a table without watching first.

You never know what is happening at a table until you have watched. there could be maniacs blowing off steam or maybe a rock waiting for a good hand. You just don't want to get caught bluffing the wrong guy when it can be avoided with a few minutes of observation.

Take Advantage of Bonuses and Promotions

Once you start playing a lot of hands you will be able to claim some valuable prizes and bonuses. Head over to our bonus code page to check out these offers.

Take All Advice With a Grain of Salt

Poker is a very individual and very situational game. Something that worked for someone in 1 situation won't necessarily work for you at any point, let alone when you need it to work.

Watch the Pros, but Don't Stare

Watching the high stakes games can be a great way to improve your game or incorporate new ideas. However you must remember that these games play much differently than some of the lower stakes. As with the previous poker tip, just because something worked for one of those players, it won't always work for you.

When in Doubt, Keep it Simple

I sometimes find that most of my game is filled with me trying to be fancy and outplay my opponents. There is a fine line to walk and it's easy to fall off the wrong edge very quickly. If you just stick to the fundamentals and tone things down a little bit, you will usually have a good chance at walking away a winner.

Experiment With Different Ideas

This is a good poker tip for beginners. You will often lose money in the short run, but the lessons learned can easily pay-off.

Read The popular Poker Books

Even if you think you don't need to read these books, you should skim through them and read a few chapters. If for no other reason, you should do this to find out what your opponents know and how they are learning about the game.

• The Theory of Poker by David Sklansky
• Harrington on Hold d 'em - Vol 1-3 by Dan Harrington

It's All About Timing

There are endless ways in which this tip can manifest itself. Good timing is sometimes a result of luck or guessing, but there is more to it than that. It's one of those things that you can't really teach someone, it just comes with experience. If you can learn how to improve your timing you are going to find your bankroll steadily increasing. If you pay close attention to your opponents you will eventually learn to improve your timing.