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10 Poker Strategies and Etiquette Tips

Published by admin on April 26, 2025

Here are 10 easy things to do to give yourself a better chance of winning at the poker table:

DON’T EXPECT PEOPLE TO PLAY LIKE YOU. Even good players have different ideas about what constitutes a good play. Don’t count on other good players doing what you would do in a certain situation. There’s more than one way to be right. In other words, the ocean is blue, but it’s also wet.
LOOK YOUR OPPONENTS IN THE EYE. See who they are. Really study their features. Get to know them. This act of active observation will make you fear them less. It’s axiomatic: We fear the unknown; make the unknown known and the fear goes away.
TRY PLAYING IN SILENCE. Silent play is an image play, sure, but here’s something else to consider: When you play in silence, you end up holding more detailed “inner conversations” with yourself. This improves your concentration, and therefore your play.
SEE THINGS AS THEY ARE. Wishful thinking leads to bad decisions. Fearful thinking does the same. Make your decisions based on real information, not on what you hope or, alternatively, fear that your opponents hold. It’s bad enough to get bluffed by someone else; never let yourself get bluffed by you.
KEEP IT IMPERSONAL. At the poker table it’s easy to get sucked into our opponents’ personalities. When you’re driven by the desire to beat that jerk in seat four, just because he happens to be a jerk in seat four, you’re moving away from your good game and into the dangerous realm of personality poker. Keep it impersonal to keep it profitable.
RESPOND TO CHANGE. A poker game is not static. It’s a dynamic, living organism that changes from moment to moment. You have to respond to those changes. Just because seat five was bluffing an hour ago doesn’t mean he’s bluffing now. Has he lost a lot of money since then? Has he had a few bluffs busted? Be up-to-the-second in your thinking or be prepared to go home broke.
BEWARE SUBJECTIVE REALITY. When the hand you folded an hour ago is the hand you raise with now, it’s time to get up and go home.
SERVE YOUR GAME, NOT YOUR EGO. Serving your ego in a poker game can do you no good. It will only cloud your card sense with a lot of irrelevant issues, and also alienate your opponents. Be humble, act humble, and leave your ego in the car.
HAVE A SCENARIO. When you’re in a hand against one or more opponents, put them on something. Make your best guess about their holding in light of their betting. It sounds obvious, I know, but so many of us get so caught up in our own hands that we don’t stop to consider, really consider, what our enemies are up to until it’s too late. If you have a scenario, you may be wrong but at least you have a chance to be right. If you don’t think about what they have, then you have no chance of being right.
SHOULD YOU COUNT YOUR MONEY AT THE TABLE? Ideally you have so much money that you can’t count that high.