%20(1).jpg "How to Win at Poker Instantly! (Only Use This Strategy)")
This article was written by blackrain79.com contributor Fran Ferlan.
Poker has a short term luck element involved, so sometimes you can lose despite playing perfectly.
However, if you follow the right strategy, you can drastically increase your chances of winning consistently.
In this article, we’ll go over simple tips you can use to beat your opponents on a regular basis, even if you’re a complete beginner.
Let’s get right into it.
Simple Poker Strategy Tip #1: Only Play Strong Starting Hands
If you want to win in poker at least somewhat consistently, your best bet is to only play strong starting hands.
In no-limit hold’em, not all starting hands are created equal.
Some starting hands have a much better chance of connecting with the flop and making strong post flop combinations.
So if you want to get an immediate edge over your opponents, you should only play hands that have a reasonable chance of connecting with the flop, and ditch the rest.
Here’s a brief overview of starting hands you should play in no-limit hold’em:
a) pocket pairs (pocket Aces through pocket Twos)
b) broadway hands (strong face cards that can make the strongest possible straight, like AJ or KQ)
c) suited Aces (AKs through A2s)
d) suited connectors (like T9s or 87s).
These hands make up roughly the top 20% of all starting hands in no-limit hold’em. You should only play the top 15% of hands in 9 player games.
These hands make up roughly the top 20% of all starting hands in no-limit hold’em. You should only play the top 15% of hands in 9 player games.
Here is a chart to give you a general idea.
The rest is trash and should be thrown away.
The rest is trash and should be thrown away.
Only playing strong starting hands is one of the key aspects of a proven tight and aggressive (TAG) poker strategy.
TAG strategy works particularly well in most low stakes poker games because it capitalizes on weaknesses of the majority of the player pool you’re likely to face.
One of the most common poker mistakes at lower stakes is playing too many hands.
And the best way to take advantage of this mistake is to simply play stronger hands than your opponents on average.
If you only play strong hands, you will make strong post flop combinations more often, and your hand will often dominate your opponent’s hand.
A dominated hand is the one that’s unlikely to win against a stronger hand due to a weaker kicker.
For example, if you play a hand like Ace-King, you will dominate all the weaker Ax hands your opponents could play.
And since one pair is the most common hand combination you’ll make in no-limit hold’em, kickers can often determine the winner of the hand.
That’s why it’s best to avoid playing hands with mediocre to weak kickers that can often get you in trouble post flop.
Now, folding 80% of all hands may seem too restrictive, and fair enough.
But this is only a general guideline, of course.
The number of hands you can play profitably will depend on a lot of different factors, namely your table position.
You can use the top 20% recommendation for the middle table position.
You should play even less hands in early table positions, but you can play more hands as you get closer to the button (i.e. late table positions).
Of course, if you just want to have fun, you can play just about any hand that’s dealt to you.
But you can’t expect to win any money this way.
That’s because most hands miss most flops in no-limit hold’em.
You will miss the flop completely 2 out of every 3 times on average.
If you play an even wider and weaker range preflop, you’ll miss the flop even more often than that.
And since you have to pay money every time to see the flop, the more flops you see, the more money you lose over the long run.
And no, you won’t make up for all the losses by hitting an occasional lucky flop.
Again, this is because not every hand has an equal chance of smashing to flop.
To smash the flop means to connect with the flop in a very strong manner, making two pair or a stronger combination.
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Simple Poker Strategy Tip #2: Play Most Hands in Position
As mentioned, the number of hands you can play profitably depends greatly on your table position.
If you want to get an immediate edge over your opponents, you should aim to play most of your hands in position.
To play in position means being the last to act in a betting round.
Here’s why you should play most hands in position:
a) to get more information
If you’re the last player to act, you get to see what your opponents do first, while they have no idea what you’re about to do next.
This informational advantage will allow you to make more informed decisions while your opponents will often be left guessing.
b) to control the pot size
When playing in position, you get a final say at the price of the pot.
If you have a strong hand, you can bet or raise to inflate the pot size. If you have a mediocre or a drawing hand, you can just call or check behind to get a cheap next card.
c) to bluff more effectively
Due to the positional disadvantage, your opponent won’t be as likely to fight back for pots when they’re playing out of position.
This allows you to push them out of pots with a well timed bluff.
Bluffing is more effective when done in position because it puts more pressure on your opponents, and they will have a hard time dealing with your aggression over multiple streets.
d) to realize your equity
Your hand equity simply refers to the percentage chance of winning the hand if players go to showdown.
Playing in position makes it easier to realize your equity because you’ll be able to reach showdown more often, even if you don’t have a particularly strong hand.
Better yet, you can deny your opponents their equity by trying to push them out of pots with bluffs.
A word of caution: you should be very careful when trying to bluff most recreational players (aka fun players).
These players usually like to call down a lot, so bluffing is obviously not the most effective strategy against them.
Instead, just keep things simple and value bet your strong hands instead.
So how do you play more hands in position?
You simply open-raise more hands when you’re in late table positions (namely the cutoff and the button), and open-raise less hands in early table positions.
The closer you are to the dealer button, the better the chance of playing in position post flop.
When you’re playing on the button in particular, you will always have positional advantage post flop.
This is why the button is going to be your most profitable seat at the table by far.
Due to the positional advantage, you can often get away with playing a much wider range on the button.
You simply open-raise more hands when you’re in late table positions (namely the cutoff and the button), and open-raise less hands in early table positions.
The closer you are to the dealer button, the better the chance of playing in position post flop.
When you’re playing on the button in particular, you will always have positional advantage post flop.
This is why the button is going to be your most profitable seat at the table by far.
Due to the positional advantage, you can often get away with playing a much wider range on the button.
In fact, if your hand is even remotely playable post flop, chances are you can open-raise it in this seat.
You will either win the pot outright preflop if the blinds fold, or you’ll get to the flop as the preflop aggressor, which will allow you to keep applying the pressure throughout the hand.
When you open-raise in late table positions with the intention of taking down the pot preflop, this is known as blind stealing.
Blind stealing can be a very profitable strategy, and the best part is that you don’t even need to have a particularly strong hand to pull it off.
What matters more than your hand strength is the playing tendencies of your opponents in the blinds.
For example, if a player is folding 8 or 9 out of 10 times to stealing attempts, you can blind steal with just about any two random cards.
Blind stealing with a wider range is a good way to transition from a tight and aggressive to a more dynamic loose and aggressive (LAG) strategy.
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Simple Poker Strategy Tip #3: Enter Most Pots With a Raise
If you’re the first player to enter the pot, you should always do so with an open-raise.
A lot of amateur poker players make the mistake of open-limping instead of open-raising.
To open-limp means to just pay the big blind instead of making a standard open-raise.
They usually do this with the intention of seeing a cheap flop, but this strategy often ends up backfiring.
Here’s why you should always open-raise instead of open-limping:
a) to build up the pot
If you have a strong value hand, your best bet is to build up the pot with it as soon as possible.
The bigger the pot you build up preflop, the easier it is to ship the rest of your stack in the middle post flop.
And since most of the money you’ll win in this game will come from your strong value hands, your best bet is to build up the pot with them as quickly as possible.
b) to get initiative
If you are the preflop aggressor, you have the opportunity to make a continuation bet on the flop (or c-bet for short).
C-bets are usually profitable, so you can usually c-bet on most flop textures unless there’s a specific reason not to do so (more about c-betting below).
c) to thin the field
If you open-limp, you’re inviting other players to limp behind you, which can often lead to multiway pots.
A multiway pot is a pot with more than two players involved.
It’s harder to win the hand in multiway pots, because every additional player involved will have a small chunk of equity against you.
d) to steal the blinds
When you open-raise, you can sometimes take down the pot preflop if you make all the other players fold.
When you open-limp, you’re giving the players in the blinds no incentive to fold their hand, so they get to see a cheap flop and realize their equity.
One advantage of blind stealing is that you don’t even need to have a particularly strong hand to pull it off.
If your opponents overfold to blind stealing attempts, you can often blind steal with a very wide range, especially if you’re playing in position.
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But what do you do if another player open-raises before you?
In this scenario, you have the option to either call their open-raise or raise them back (i.e. 3-bet them).
As a general rule, calling is the last option you should consider preflop.
It’s statistically less profitable to get to the flop as the preflop caller than the preflop aggressor.
If you’re using a hand tracking software like PokerTracker 4, you can check these stats yourself.
That’s because the preflop aggressor has the initiative and the range advantage, which makes it easier to win the hand post flop.
So if another player open-raises before you, you should either fold or 3-bet them most of the time, and only call if folding or 3-betting don’t work.
When you’re first starting out, you should keep your 3-betting range mostly value-heavy.
This means you 3-bet with only strong premium hands like pocket Aces through pocket Jacks, Ace-King, Ace-Queen and so on.
As you get more experience, you can gradually start expanding your 3-betting range, and start adding a couple of 3-bet bluffing hands.
If you only 3-bet your strong hands, you may become too predictable after a while, and your opponents will simply stop giving you action when you make a 3-bet.
For example, the range outlined above makes up only 4% of all starting hands in no-limit hold’em.
This means it can be relatively easy to read your hand.
If you find your opponents seem to fold to your 3-bets too often, you can adjust by simply 3-bet bluffing more.
3-bet bluffing (aka light 3-betting) can be a very effective preflop strategy, especially if you find your opponent overfold to 3-bets in general.
The best hands to 3-bet light with are the ones that have decent post flop playability, in case your 3-bet bluff gets called.
For this purpose, you can use hands like small pocket pairs or suited connectors, but by far the best 3-bet bluffing hands are small suited Aces (A5s through A2s).
These hands make for great 3-bet bluffing candidates because they have excellent playability when your 3-bet gets called.
Suited Aces have a great nuts potential, with the ability to make both nut flushes as well as straights.
They also have blocker power which makes them ideal for light 3-betting.
A blocker is a card in your hand that reduces the number of strong combos in your opponent’s range.
For example, if you have an Ace in your hand, it’s less likely for your opponent to have strong combos like pocket Aces, Ace-King, Ace-Queen and so on.
An Ace blocker reduces the number of combos of pocket Aces from 6 to only 3, and the number of Ace-King combos from 16 to 12.
Example Poker Hand
You are dealt A♥5♥ in the BB (big blind). Villain open-raises to 2.5 from the CO (cutoff).
You: ???
You should 3-bet to 10 BB.
Calling is not necessarily a bad option here, but throwing out an occasional light 3-bet is likely to be a better alternative.
If you call here, you’ll be playing the pot out of position, and you’ll be playing without the initiative with an easily dominated hand.
This can lead to a lot of awkward post flop spots where you’re not quite sure whether your hand is ahead or not.
If you 3-bet, on the other hand, you can often win the pot outright preflop, because you’re attacking a relatively wide cutoff open-raising range.
And a lot of hands in that range won’t be able to stand the pressure of a 3-bet.
Even if your opponent calls, you’re still going to get to the flop with the initiative and the range advantage, instead of the other way around.
This means you can keep applying the pressure post flop with a c-bet, or even make a strong value hand and potentially take down a big pot.
These days, it’s not enough to wait for premium hands to be a profitable long term winner.
You also need to know how to play in less than ideal circumstances, like playing out of position against players who won’t just roll over.
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Simple Poker Strategy Tip #4: Make a C-bet on Most Flops
If you are the preflop aggressor, you have the opportunity to make a continuation bet (or c-bet for short) on the flop.
C-bets are usually profitable, so you should make a c-bet on most flops unless there’s a specific reason not to do so.
If you connect with the flop, you can c-bet for value, where you expect to get called by a lot of weaker hands.
For example:
You open-raise with Ace-King and the flop is:
A♦T♣7♥
In a spot like this, you can get called by a number of weaker hands, like weaker Ax hands, Tx hands, straight draws like KQ, KJ, QJ, 98 and so on.
When you c-bet for value, you want to keep building up the pot while your hand is ahead of your opponent’s calling range.
If you miss the flop, you can still make a c-bet and potentially get your opponent to fold.
When you c-bet the flop with the intention of making your opponent fold, this is known as a bluff c-bet (or a light c-bet).
If you only c-bet the flop with your strong made hands, you may become too predictable to players who are paying attention to your betting patterns.
This is not a problem if you’re playing against a lot of recreational poker players who simply don’t pay attention to anything but their hole cards.
But against more observant opponents, you want to mix in an occasional light c-bet to always keep them guessing.
The reason light c-bets are usually profitable is the fact that your opponent is just as likely to have missed the flop as you did.
This is because most hands miss most flops in no-limit hold’em.
In fact, you can expect to miss the flop completely 2 out of 3 times on average.
But since you are the preflop aggressor, you have the range advantage, which allows you to credibly represent a number of strong hands on the flop.
For example, let’s say you open-raise with JTs and the flop is:
A♠9♥3♣
As the preflop aggressor, you theoretically have more strong Ax hands in your range, like AK, AQ, pocket Aces and so on.
Your opponent is less likely to have these hands because they called preflop instead of 3-betting.
So your opponent will usually have to fold to your c-bet unless they happen to have an Ace themselves.
If you do decide to make a light c-bet, however, it’s usually better to do it with hands that have some chance of improving on future streets.
When you c-bet with hands that can potentially improve on future streets, this is known as a semibluff.
Semibluffs are usually preferable to stone-cold bluffs, where the only way for you to win the hand is by making your opponent fold.
When semibluffing, you can either take down the pot right away if your opponent folds, or you can potentially improve to a stronger hand on future streets and take down an even bigger pot.
In other words, you have some equity to fall back on in case your bluff gets called.
Another factor that determines the profitability of light c-bets is how often your opponents actually fold to c-bets in the first place.
Some players like to see a lot of flops, but tend to give up pretty easily when they don’t connect with the board (which happens most of the time).
Against these fit-or-fold players, it can be very profitable to c-bet the flop with a wide range, as you’re likely to have a lot of fold equity, especially on drier board textures.
Fold equity simply refers to the percentage chance of your opponent folding to your bets.
Against certain player types, your fold equity is likely to be quite low, or close to nonexistent.
This is usually the case against recreational players who like to call a lot (i.e. calling stations).
Against this player type, bluffing is hardly an optimal strategy.
That’s because they are likely to call you down if they catch any remote piece of the board.
Against calling stations, you should just keep things simple and value bet your strong hands, and dispense with bluffing altogether.
But against other player types, light c-betting can be quite profitable, as they will have a hard time calling you down with an optimal frequency.
Simple Poker Strategy Tip #5: Don’t Bluff Too Much
In poker, most of the money you’ll make will come from your strong value hands, where your opponent has a weaker hand that’s willing to pay you off.
So if you want to win at poker at least somewhat consistently, your best bet is to simply wait for a strong hand and try to get paid off with it.
This means you shouldn’t bluff too much, especially when you’re first starting out.
Bluffing is indeed an important aspect of any advanced poker strategy, but being able to bluff successfully depends greatly on your opponent’s (in)ability to actually fold their hand.
If your opponents are not likely to fold against your bluffs, it’s better to dispense with bluffing altogether and simply value bet your strong hands instead.
This is especially the case at lower stakes games where players are often likely to overcall.
To overcall means to call more frequently than would be considered “optimal”.
Calling too much is one of signature moves of recreational poker players.
Since these players mostly play for fun, you can’t really expect them to fold often, because folding is boring.
Making tight, disciplined folds is simply not a big part of their playing repertoire.
This is one of the reasons most recreational poker players actually lose money over the long run.
Here’s a few reasons why recreational players usually don’t like to fold:
a) recreational players love to chase draws
To chase draws means to call on the flop or on the turn with the hope of completing your draw on the next street.
Recreational players usually chase draws regardless of the pot odds or the implied odds, and often call with drawing hands regardless of the price they get on a call.
So trying to push them off of their drawing hands is often an exercise in futility.
b) recreational players often overvalue their hand strength
A lot of beginner poker players don’t appreciate the difference between their absolute and their relative hand strength.
Absolute hand strength tells you the overall strength of a certain combination (for example, a flush is stronger than a straight).
Relative hand strength refers to your hand strength based on the board runout.
For example:
Let’s say you are dealt 8♦7♦ and you see the following board runout:
9♥TA♠♥J♥9♣
On this board, you have a straight, but your relative hand strength is quite poor.
Not only can you lose to a stronger straight (KQ), but your opponent could also have a flush, or even a full house.
A recreational player may overvalue their hand strength in a similar scenario and may refuse to fold their straight, even though there’s a to of potential combos that beat them.
This is why it’s usually a bad idea to try to “represent” a stronger hand, especially on wet, coordinated boards like in the example above.
c) recreational players love to hero call
Recreational players are often under the impression that everybody is out to bluff them all the time.
So they often make wild calldowns to “keep their opponents honest”.
Don’t prove them right.
Instead, just value bet your strong hands and watch them donate their stack to you.
There are other reasons why recreational players often call too much, like impatience, tilt, or again, just plain boredom.
Either way, it’s best to save your bluffs for players who are actually capable of folding their hand.
Now, this doesn’t mean that bluffing is totally out of the question against recreational players.
There are some spots where players actually overfold to bluffing attempts, so knowing when to apply pressure in these key spots can go a long way.
For example, some players like to see a lot of flops, but often give up easily when they miss the board.
Against these players, it can be profitable to bluff c-bet with a wider range, as they will often just give up the hand.
Another example istriple barrel bluffing when a lot of draws have missed on the river.
To triple barrel means to c-bet the flop, the turn, and the river. To triple barrel bluff means to do so with the intention of getting your opponent to fold.
But this is getting into a bit of advanced territory, and while this strategy can be extremely profitable, it’s worth noting that it’s a high risk, high reward play.
If your opponent is a calling station, however, you shouldn’t bother trying to pull it off, because chances are that it’s going to go right over their head, anyway.
How to Win at Poker Instantly - Summary
You don’t need to learn a ton of advanced poker strategy to start winning at poker relatively quickly (although it won't hurt you).
All you have to do is learn some simple techniques that work surprisingly well in most low stakes poker games.
To sum up, here’s how you can start winning at poker right away, even if you’re a complete beginner.
1. Only play strong starting hands
This includes pocket pairs, broadway hands, suited Aces and suited connectors.
The rest is trash and should be thrown away.
2. Play most hands in position
To play in position means being the last to act in a betting round, which gives you a huge advantage over your opponents.
To play more hands in position, simply open-raise more hands in late table positions (the cutoff and the button), and play more selectively from early table positions and the blinds.
3. Enter most pots with a raise
If you’re the first player to enter the pot, do so with an open-raise and avoid open-limping altogether.
Open-raising gives you the initiative and the range advantage, which makes it easier to win the pot post flop.
4. Make a c-bet on most flops
If you are the preflop aggressor, you have the opportunity to make a continuation bet (c-bet) on the flop.
C-bets are usually profitable, so you should c-bet most flops unless there’s a good reason not to do so.
5. Don’t bluff too much
Bluffing only works if your opponents are actually capable of folding their hand, which is often not the case when you’re playing against a bunch of recreational players.
Against them, you should keep things simple, and just value bet your strong hands instead.
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This article was written by Fran Ferlan
Poker player, writer and coach
Specializing in live and online cash games
For coaching enquiries, contact Fran at fran.redline@gmail.com
Or apply directly for poker coaching with Fran, right here
Lastly, if you want to know the complete strategy I use to make $2000+ per month in small/mid stakes games, grab a copy of my free poker cheat sheet.
