5 Things I Wish I Knew When I Was Starting Poker

This article was written by blackrain79.com contributor Fran Ferlan.

There are 5 key strategies that I wish I knew before becoming a professional poker player and you are going to learn them in this article.

This article will highlight 5 important poker tips that would have saved me a lot of time and money, had I known them when I was first starting out.

In fact, these 5 tips are guaranteed to improve your poker game, regardless of your current skill level.

Let’s get right into it.

Beginner Poker Tip #1: Only Play Strong Starting Hands

If you want to quickly improve your poker results, the best way to do it is to simply play less hands preflop.

Winning more by playing less may seem counterintuitive, but it’s by far the best way to give yourself an edge over your competition.

This is especially the case if you’re playing in low stakes games where players are likely to play too many hands.

You should only play strong starting hands that have a reasonable chance of connecting with the flop in some meaningful way.

Here’s a brief overview of starting hands you should play preflop:

a) pocket pairs (AA through 22)

b) broadway hands (face cards that can make the strongest possible straight, like AQ, KJ etc.)

c) suited Aces 

d) suited connectors



These hands make up roughly the top 20% of all starting hands in no-limit hold’em. The rest is trash and should be thrown away.

Take this list with a grain of salt, of course.

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What Other Factors Are Important in Starting Hand Selection?

The number of hands you can play profitably will depend on a lot of factors, namely your table position, the effective stack sizes, the skill edge you have over your opponents and so on.

Here are a few key reasons why you should only play strong starting hands in no-limit hold’em:

a) to gain an edge over loose opponents

In no-limit hold’em, not all starting hands are created equal.

Some hands simply have a better chance of connecting with the flop than others.

So If you only play strong starting hands, you will make strong combinations post flop more often than opponents who choose to play just about any random hand.

b) to dominate your opponent’s range

A dominated hand is the one that’s unlikely to win against a stronger hand due to a weaker kicker.

A kicker is the card in your hand that doesn’t help you make a certain hand combination, but can determine the winner of the hand if both players end up having the same combination.

For example, if both you and your opponent have a pair of Aces, the player with the stronger kicker wins the hand.

And since one pair is the most common combination you’ll make in no-limit hold’em, a kicker can often determine whether you win or lose the pot.

If you play a bunch of trashy hands with bad kickers, you run the risk of your hand being dominated.

You always want your hand to dominate your opponent’s, instead of the other way around.

c) to minimize the impact of rake

A rake is the percentage of the pot the casino takes away from every pot.

If you want to be a profitable long term winner in this game, not only do you need to beat other players, but you also have to beat the rake.

Most beginner poker players overlook or underestimate the impact rake has on their bottom line.

If you’re playing in games with a high rake, your best bet is to simply tighten up preflop, so you’re paying less rake overall.

Even if you manage to win a pot with some sort of a mediocre hand, the rake is going to eat into your overall profitability.

This means that slightly winning plays become breakeven, and breakeven plays become slightly unprofitable when you take rake into account.

I discuss this in much more detail in my recent video: 

"How to realistically win at poker as a beginner."

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Beginner Poker Tip #2: Play Most Hands in Position to Get an Edge

Folding about 80% of the hands may seem boring, and fair enough.

But risking a bit of boredom for the prospect of making an easy buck is a fair tradeoff, as far as I’m concerned.

Also, playing only the top 20% of hands is just a general guideline.

A big factor that determines the number of hands you can play profitably is your table position.

You should play even less than 20% of hands in early position, but you can play way more hands in later table position.

Your table position is always relative to the dealer button.

The farther away you are from the button, the less hands you should play, and the closer you are to the button, the more hands you can play.



When you’re playing on the button in particular, you can often get away with playing a very wide range.

The closer you are to the button, the more likely you are to play in position post flop.

When you’re playing on the button, you will ALWAYS play in position post flop, which makes the button the most profitable seat in poker.

The second most profitable seat is the cutoff, i.e. the seat on the direct right of the button.

To play in position means being the last to act in a betting round, which is a huge advantage.

Here’s why you should aim to play most hands in position:

a) to get an informational advantage

When you’re playing in position, you get to see what your opponents do first, while they have no idea what you’re about to do.

Poker is a game of incomplete information, and the player with the informational advantage will come out on top more often than not.

b) to control the pot size

When you’re the last player to act in a betting round, you get a final say at the price of the pot.

If you have a strong value hand, you can bet or raise to inflate the pot size.

If you have a marginal or drawing hand, you can just call or check behind to keep the pot size small.

c) to bluff more effectively

Due to the positional disadvantage, your opponents will be less likely to fight back for pots.

This means you can often push them out of the pot with a well-timed bluff.

For example, when your opponent checks to you, it’s usually going to be a sign of weakness.

This means you can apply a lot of pressure on your opponents when you’re playing in position, whether or not you actually have a strong hand.

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Beginner Poker Tip #3: Enter Most Pots With a Raise

If you’re the first player to enter the pot, you should do so with an open-raise.

A lot of amateur poker players make the mistake of limping in when they’re the first player to enter the pot.

To limp in means to just pay the big blind instead of open-raising.

Here’s why you should enter most pots with an open-raise:

a) to build up the pot with your strong hands

If you want to win big in poker, you need to win big pots. 

And the best way to do it is to build up the pot with your strong hands 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.

In poker, most of the money you’ll win will come from your strong value hands where your opponents can pay you off with weaker hands.

So your best bet is to start building up the pot preflop while your hand is likely to be ahead of your opponent’s calling range.

b) to steal the blinds

When you open-raise, you can sometimes take down the pot preflop if you make all your opponents fold.

If you open-limp, on the other hand, you’re giving the players in the blinds no incentive to fold their hand.

Picking up a few pots preflop (even without a particularly strong hand) is great for your bottom line because you don’t have to pay rake if you don’t see the flop.

Check out my ultimate blind stealing cheat sheet to learn how to steal the blinds like a pro.

c) to avoid multiway pots

If you open-limp, you’re inviting other players to limp behind you, which usually leads to multiway pots.

A multiway pot is a pot with more than 2 players involved.

The more players involved in the pot, the harder it is for you to win the hand, because every additional player is going to have a chunk of equity against your hand.

Ideally, you want to get to the flop as the preflop aggressor (preferably in position) against only one or two opponents.

This will make it much easier for you to win the pot, either by making the strongest hand, or by pushing your opponents out of the pot with a well-timed bluff.

d) to get initiative

If you are the preflop aggressor, you have the opportunity to continue the aggression post flop with a continuation bet (or c-bet for short).

C-bets are usually profitable, so you should be inclined to make one on most flops unless there’s a specific reason not to do so.

If you’re often not sure whether or not you should c-bet the flop, check out my ultimate flop strategy guide.

If another player open-raises before you, you have the option to either call, fold, or raise (3-bet).

As a general rule, calling is the last option you should consider preflop.

Getting to the flop as the preflop aggressor is going to be much more profitable over the long run than getting to the flop as the preflop caller.

So calling preflop should be more of an exception than the rule.

Check out my preflop calling guide to find out when it’s ok to call preflop.

Beginner Poker Tip #4: Make a C-bet on Most Flops

Being the preflop aggressor puts you at an advantage throughout the hand, because you can make a c-bet on the flop.

If you connect with the flop, you can c-bet for value and get called by a lot of weaker hands.

If you miss the flop, you can still make a c-bet on most flops and try to push your opponents out of the pot.

When you make a c-bet with the intention of getting your opponents to fold, this is known as a bluff c-bet, or a light c-bet.

Here’s why you can usually c-bet regardless of whether or not you’ve connected with the flop:

a) you have the range advantage

The range advantage means you theoretically have more strong hands in your range than your opponent.

Since your opponent didn’t 3-bet you preflop, their range is capped, meaning they can’t have strong hands like pocket Aces, pocket Kings, Ace-King and so on.

These hands would probably 3-bet preflop instead of calling.

Your range remains uncapped, on the other hand, meaning you theoretically could have all these strong hands in your range.

This means you can credibly represent a strong hand on most flops.

For example, let’s say you open-raise preflop, you get one caller, and the flop is: 

A♥Q♣4♦

If you c-bet, you can credibly represent a lot of strong hands like pocket Aces, pocket Queens, AK, AQ and so on.

Your opponent is unlikely to have these hands in their range, because they would probably 3-bet you preflop if they had them.

b) your opponent is just as likely to have missed the flop as you

In no-limit hold’em, most hands miss most flops (2 out of 3 times, to be precise).

So even if you miss the flop completely, your opponent is just as likely to have missed the flop as you did.

And since you have the range advantage, you can still credibly represent a lot of strong hands with a c-bet.

This means your opponent is going to have to default to folding to c-bets most of the time.

This is especially the case in low stakes games where a lot of players won’t adjust enough to your rampant c-betting.

A lot of players at the lower stakes tend to play too straightforwardly on the flop.

This means they will give up their hand fairly easily if they don’t connect with the board (which is going to be most of the time).

Against these fit-or-fold players, you can basically print money by making a c-bet on virtually any flop.

c) you have a chance to catch up on future streets

Even if you miss the flop, you will often have a chance to improve your hand on future streets.

As a general rule, the more likely your hand is to improve on future streets, the more inclined you should be to make a c-bet.

This is especially the case if you flop some sort of a draw (like a straight or a flush draw), or if you have one or two overcards.

An overcard is a card that’s stronger than the strongest card on the flop. 

For example, on a flop like Q♠8♦5♣, Aces and Kings are overcards.

If you have a strong draw, your best bet is to play it very aggressively.

This way, you can either take down the pot right away without needing to hit your outs, or you can potentially take down an even bigger pot on future streets if your draw completes.

An out is a card that you need to complete your draw. The more outs you have, the stronger your draw and vice versa.

By the way, you can quickly calculate the percentage chance of your draw completing by using the so-called rule of fours.

Rule of fours: simply multiply the number of outs you have by 4 to get a rough percentage chance of your draw competing from flop to river.

The rule of fours gets slightly less accurate the more outs you have, but it works well in most in-game situations.

If you want to know the chance of your draw completing on the next street (flop to turn or turn to river), you simply multiply the number of outs by 2 instead of 4.

If all of the above factors are not working in your favour, it’s better to skip a c-bet and give up the hand altogether.

For example, if your hand has very poor equity, and your opponent is very unlikely to fold to your c-bet, it’s better to  give up and wait for a better spot.

Beginner Poker Example Hand #1

Cash Game, Effective Stack Size: 100 BB 

You are dealt A♦Q♦ in the MP (middle position). You open-raise to 3 BB. Villain calls from the BB (big blind).

Pot: 6.5 BB

Flop: K♠8♥3♣

Villain checks. 

You: ??? 

You should c-bet 3 BB.

Even though you’ve missed the flop, you can still go ahead and make a standard c-bet on a flop like this.

The board is fairly dry, so there’s not a lot of ways villain could have connected with the flop.

Your range theoretically has more Kx hands than the villain does, so you can credibly represent a strong hand like AK, KQ, KJ, pocket Aces, pocket Kings and so on.

Even if you get called, you still have a decent chunk of equity to fall back on.

You can still hit an Ace on future streets, and you also have a backdoor straight draw.

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Beginner Poker Tip #5: Don’t Chase Bad Draws

One of the most common amateur poker mistakes is chasing too many draws.

When playing poker, most of the time you will either miss the flop completely or flop some sort of a draw, like a straight or a flush draw.

In no-limit hold’em, most draws don’t complete, and drawing hands are almost always an underdog to made hand on the flop.

This means you should only chase draws that

a) have a reasonable chance of completing and

b) make it likely that you will win the hand if you do complete your draw.

Also, you should always consider the pot odds you’re getting on a call to figure out whether or not you can continue playing the hand profitably.

Simply put, the pot odds are the ratio between the pot size and the price you need to call to continue playing the hand.

For example, if you face a half pot bet, you’re getting 3:1 pot odds on a call, and if you face a full pot bet, you’re getting 2:1 odds on a call.

This means you need 25% equity and 33% equity respectively to continue playing the hand.

Since most bet sizes you’ll face will be between half pot and full pot, it’s worth remembering these percentages at least.

So how can pot odds help you make better calls when you have a drawing hand?

You simply compare the hand equity you need to call with the percentage chance of completing your draw.

For example, let’s say you’re dealt A♥5♥ and the flop is: K♥8♣2♥ 

In this spot, you have 9 clean outs to a nuts flush.

For simplicity’s sake, let’s assume your opponent doesn’t have any sets in their range, so there’s no threat of them making a full house with one of your outs.

By using the rule of fours, you can estimate your chance of improvement to a flush to be around 36%.

So if you face a half pot bet and you’re getting 3:1 on a call, you need 25% equity to break even on a call.

This means you’re getting favourable pot odds on a call here, so you can continue playing the hand profitably.

Granted, just because calling has a positive expected value (it’s +EV), it doesn’t mean it’s the most +EV play.

Raising your flush draw may well be more profitable than calling, so you always have to consider all the possible lines and choose the most profitable one.

For a full breakdown on how to use pot odds to make the most +EV decisions, check out my ultimate pot odds cheat sheet.

Important note: the pot odds only tell you if you can call profitably RIGHT NOW.

In other words, pot odds don’t take into account the amount of money you can potentially earn on future streets.

This is where the implied odds come into play.

Simply put, the implied odds refer to the amount of money you can potentially earn on future streets if you hit one of your outs, for example.

Implied odds allow you to call in certain spots where you’re not getting sufficient pot odds on a call.

Just to be clear, the implied odds don’t give you the license to call just about any bet just because you have the potential to make more money on future streets.

When considering the implied odds, it’s better to err on the side of caution.

If you want to consider the implied odds, you need to have a certain degree of confidence that your opponent will actually pay you off if you manage to hit one of your strong combinations.

You also need to make sure your opponent doesn’t end up having an even stronger hand.

In other words, you need to consider the reverse implied odds, as well.

Reverse implied odds refer to the amount of money you can potentially lose if you hit a strong combination, but your opponent ends up having an even stronger hand.

For example, let’s say you are dealt 9♠8♠ and the flop is T♥7♣2♥ 

You have an open-ended straight draw, so you have 8 outs total (4 Jacks and 4 Sixes).

But a Jack of hearts or a Six of hearts can also potentially give your opponent a flush that beats you.

This means that 2 of your outs are “tainted”, because they could actually help your opponent more than you.

So you’d need to discount those outs when figuring out your equity.

Beginner Poker Example Hand #2

Cash Game, Effective Stack Size: 100 BB 

You are dealt J♣9♣ in the BB (big blind). Villain open-raises to 2.5 BB from the CO (cutoff). You call.

Pot: 5.5 BB

Flop: A♥Q♠8♥ 

You check. Villain bets 3.5 BB.

You: ??? 

You should fold.

This is a textbook example of a weak draw you’re better off not chasing.

Let’s consider the pot odds first. You’re getting 2.57:1 odds on a call, meaning you need about 28% equity to break even on the call.

You have an inside straight draw, so your chance of improvement from flop to river is 17%.

This means you’re not getting sufficient pot odds to call profitably here.

What’s worse, even if you hit your lucky Ten, you may end up having only the second best hand, as your opponent could beat you with KJ.

The final nail in the coffin is the fact that you’re playing the hand out of position, so it’s going to be way harder for you to realize your equity and win a big pot.

5 Things I Wish I Knew When Starting Poker - Summary

Improving your poker game takes time, but you don’t need to learn a lot of advanced poker strategy to start winning relatively quickly.

All you need to do is learn the basics of tight and aggressive (TAG) strategy and play in games where you have a reasonable chance of winning.

To sum up, here are 5 poker tips all beginners should know.

1. Only play strong starting hands

You should only play hands that have a reasonable chance of connecting with the flop in some meaningful way.

This includes pocket pairs, broadway hands, suited Aces and suited connectors. These hands make up the top 20% of all starting hands in no-limit hold’em.

The rest is trash and should be thrown away.

2. Play most hands in position

Playing in position means being the last to act in a betting round.

By playing in position, you have an informational edge over your opponents, you get a final say at the price of the pot, and you can value bet or bluff more effectively.

3. Enter most pots with a raise

If you’re the first player to enter the pot, you should do so with an open-raise.

Open-raising allows you to build up the pot with your strong hands, gives you the opportunity to make a c-bet on the flop, and makes it less likely you’ll be playing in a multiway pots.

Also, you can sometimes win the pot outright preflop if you make all the other players fold.

4. Make a c-bet on most flops

A c-bet (continuation bet for short) is a bet made by the previous street’s aggressor.

C-bets are usually profitable, so you should be inclined to make one on most flops unless there’s a specific reason not to do so.

5. Don’t chase draws

Most draws don’t complete in no-limit hold’em, so you should only chase draws if you’re getting sufficient pot odds or implied odds on a call.

The strength of your draw is determined by how many outs you have, and how strong your hand is likely to be if you do manage to hit one of your outs.

---

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 email@franferlan.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.

6 Low Stakes Poker Tips the Pros Don't Want You to Know

This article was written by blackrain79.com contributor Fran Ferlan.

You don’t have to be a high stakes poker pro to make money in this game. There’s decent money to be made even at the lower stakes, but only if you follow the right strategy.

In this article, you’ll find out about some lesser known strategies you can use to dominate the low stakes poker games. 

There’s a lot of ground to cover on this one, so let’s get right into it.

1. Abuse the Button at Low Stakes Poker Games

Most of the money you’ll make in poker will come from the late positions at the table (namely the cutoff and the button). 

Chances are, you’ll be surprised by just how much more money you make from playing on the button than on the other table positions.

That’s because when you’re playing on the button, you will ALWAYS play in position post flop. 

Playing in position is a huge advantage to have for multiple reasons:

A) You have more information than your opponents. 

By being the last to act, you get to see what they did, and they have no idea what you are going to do.

B) You can control the size of the pot. 

If you’re the last to act, you get the final say at the size of the pot. 

If you have a strong hand, you can bet or raise to inflate the pot size, and if you have a mediocre or a drawing hand, you can call or check behind to keep the pot size smaller.

C) You can bluff more effectively. 

Since it’s harder to play out of position due to the informational disadvantage, players will be less likely to fight back for pots. This means you can push them out of pots more easily with a well-timed bluff.

Even if you’re not aware of just how powerful playing in position is, you’re still likely to win a lot more money when you’re playing in position.

Now, imagine how much more money you could earn if you consciously made an effort to fully take advantage of playing in late positions, specifically on the button.



In fact, one of the best ways to look at playing on the button is that you should all but abuse that position.

This means playing a significantly wider range on the button compared to any other position at the table.

If you know the basics of the winning poker strategy, you know that your best bet is to play a tight range and value bet your strong hands relentlessly.

But what a lot of players get wrong is that they fail to adjust their ranges based on their table position. It’s true that you should play tight, especially at the early positions at the table.

But as you get progressively closer to the button, you should start loosening up your ranges.

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Play More Hands on the Button

This means you should be open-raising a lot more hands, even the ones that aren’t necessarily considered strong hands.

The power of position in poker is so great that if often allows you to play even mediocre hands profitably.

For example, if you’re playing on the button, and you have weak and/or tight players in the blinds, you can often get away with open raising as much as 50% of all starting hands!

This may seem like an insanely wide range, and playing some of the hands in this range in any other position at the table is not likely to be profitable.

But the button is a whole different story. 

Of course, you should use your judgment, and not open-raise just about any random trash hand. Also, if your opponents in the blinds are aggressive and likely to fight back with a lot of 3-bets, you should exercise more caution and tighten up.

But if not, you’d be surprised with what you can get away with on the button.

Even if your blind stealing attempts don’t succeed, you’ll still play the rest of the hand in position, meaning you can try to take down the pot on future streets if you keep applying enough pressure.

Playing a wider range on the button is one of the easiest ways to transition to a loose and aggressive (LAG) player. 

Check out my other article for a full guide on how to play a loose and aggressive (LAG) poker style.

Also, check out my latest video on the 5 most profitable hands you need to play more often.

2. Don’t Slowplay at the Low Stakes Poker Games

When playing low stakes games, your best bet is usually to play tight and value bet your strong hands.

To value bet means to bet or raise when your hand is comfortably ahead of your opponent’s calling range. 

In other words, you believe you have the best hand, so you’re hoping to get action from weaker hands.

A lot of players make the mistake of slowplaying their strong hands instead. 

To slowplay means to play your hand passively (i.e check and call) instead of aggressively in order to conceal your hand strength.

While slowplaying can be a viable strategy in some situations, it’s usually not the best idea in low stakes games. Here’s a couple of reasons why.

First of all, slowplaying can work great if you can rely on your opponent to build up the pot for you. 

So if you’re up against a very aggressive player, slowplaying can work because you’re allowing them to put chips into the middle for you.



But since a lot of players at the lower stakes tend to play passively, slowplaying is usually not the best strategy. 

That’s because you can’t rely on your opponent to build up the pot for you, which is the basic idea behind slowplaying.

Another situation when slowplaying works is in spots where you have a really strong hand, so you slowplay in order to allow your opponent to “catch up” hand-strength-wise, so they’ll be more inclined to give you action on future streets.

This makes slowplaying a suboptimal strategy in low stakes games, because players in these games tend to overcall, so there’s no reason to slowplay, as they will gladly give you action in a lot of situations.

To overcall means to call more often than would be considered optimal.

A lot of players at the lower stakes like to call a lot, chase all kinds of draws, make wild “hero calls” and so on.

So the best tactic to use against these players is to just play your strong hands straightforwardly, and let them make the mistake of overcalling when they should be folding instead.

This is discussed in more detail in Modern Small Stakes.

If your opponent is willing to give you action with weaker hands, slowplaying just means leaving money at the table.

This is important because failing to build up the pot early on in the hand leads to a significantly smaller pot at the end of the hand.

Conversely, building up the pot early on can snowball into a much larger pot at the end of the hand.

This is known as the pot geometry, where the initial differences in bet size dramatically influence the final size of the pot. 

Example Hand #1

Let’s look at an example to illustrate this.

You open-raise to 3x from the SB (small blind) with A♥️Q♠️ and get called by the BB (big blind).

Pot size on the flop: 6 BB.

Flop: 

Q♦️6♣️2♥️

You check the flop, bet full pot on the turn, then bet full pot on the river. 

Final pot size: 54 BB

Now, let’s take a look at a different action sequence.

Pot size on the flop: 6 BB

You bet a full pot on the flop, turn, and river.

Final pot size: 162 BB

By missing only a single round of betting, the final pot size is 3 times smaller than it would have been. 

This is what it means to leave money at the table. Failing to build up the pot early on makes it a lot harder to extract value later in the hand.

Some players may object that they don’t want to “scare off their opponents” by making big bets like in the example above.

But how are you ever going to get rich from poker if you don't win big pots?

Also again, players at the lower stakes, especially recreational players, tend to call inelastically. 

This means that the price they’re getting on a call doesn’t affect how often they continue the hand.

If they like their hand, they’ll continue playing it regardless of the price. If they don’t, no amount of slowplaying is going to compel them to put additional money into the pot.

Slowplaying can also backfire because you’re allowing your opponents to complete their draws for free and realize their hand equity.

Drawing hands are usually an underdog to a made hand on the flop equity-wise. So if you think you have the best hand on the flop, you should charge your opponents a premium if they want to chase their draws. 

Of course, if you have the stone cold nuts on the flop, you can consider slowplaying to let your opponent catch up. But this is very rarely the case. 

In most situations, your opponent is never drawing completely dead, and they almost always have some sort of hand equity.

So if they want to realize that equity, let them know that it’s going to cost them.

Check out Nathan’s article on spots where you should be slowplaying for more info on the topic.

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3. Don’t Bluff too Much in Low Stakes Poker Games

Bluffing is arguably the most exciting part of poker. There’s nothing quite like the rush of pushing your opponent out of the pot while holding absolute air.

While knowing how to bluff effectively is a crucial part of advanced poker strategy, it doesn’t work quite as well in low stakes games.

In order for your bluff to work, your opponent needs to be capable of folding. And in most low stakes games with plenty of recreational players around, a lot of players tend to overcall.

So if your opponent is overcalling, the worst thing you can do is try to bluff them frequently.

No matter how well thought out your bluff is, no matter how certain you are that they have a weak hand, bluffing recreational players is a bad idea.

There are a couple of reasons why recreational players love to call.

First of all, most recreational players have a very poor grasp of the mathematical side of poker. Some of them will try to justify this by proclaiming that they are more of a “feel player”, but that’s a very weak excuse.

Basic poker math is no more complicated than what you learn in grade school. If you know how to play poker, there’s no reason you can’t grasp the pot odds.

Then again, math is boring, and recreational players play for fun, so they just don’t bother with it.

This is why they are more likely to make costly mistakes like calling with unfavourable pot odds, and chase weak draws that aren’t likely to complete.

Another reason recreational players call too much is because they don’t understand the difference between relative and absolute hand strength.

Absolute hand strength refers to actual value of your hand combination, regardless of the board and other players.

For example, one pair is a weak hand, and a flush is a strong hand.

Relative hand strength, on the other hand, takes into account the board runout, and how strong your hand combination is relative to the board.

Example Hand #2

For example, let’s say you are dealt J♦T♠. 

The board runout is:

Q♣2♠9♥8♦4♣

You have the nuts straight, i.e. the strongest possible combination on the board. You can’t lose unless you misread the board and accidentally fold.

Now, let’s look at another example. You are dealt J♦T♠ again, but this time, the board runout is:

K♥Q♠9♥8♣Q♥

You also have a straight, but your hand is relatively weaker. There are a ton of hand combinations that can have you beat. There are multiple flushes that beat you, and the board is paired, so your opponent can even have a full house.

Recreational players tend to overvalue absolute hand strength, while failing to take their relative hand strength into account.

If they hold something that they perceive to be a strong hand (like a straight, a flush, or a full house), they won’t ever fold it, no matter how scary the board runout is.

So trying to bluff them, especially on wet, coordinated boards like in the example above, will often backfire.

The third reason why you shouldn’t bluff recreational players is the fact that they will sometimes call you down just because.

If they are tilting (something that recreational players are prone to do), they will call you down out of anger, out of spite, or out of sheer desperation. 

Some of them will call you down because they simply enjoy making huge hero calls, and they think everyone is out to bluff them all the time. 

Don’t prove them right.

Save your bluffs for players who are paying attention, and are actually capable of folding.

Knowing when and how to bluff successfully is absolutely crucial in today's games. 

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4. Always Have a Fish on Your Right at Low Stakes Poker Games

In poker, most of the money you’ll earn will come from the recreational players. In order to maximize your winnings against them, you should aim to always have a recreational player on your direct right.

This way, you’ll play most of the hands in position against them, which will allow you to take advantage of their mistakes.

If you have the direct position on a recreational player, you can use isolation-raises (or iso-raises for short) to play a heads-up pot against them post flop.

A lot of recreational players make the mistake of open-limping. Open-limping means just paying the big blind instead of open-raising.

I won’t get into too much detail into why open-limpling is a bad play. You can check out my other article on common amateur poker mistakes you must avoid for more info on the topic.

Suffice it to say, when you see a player open-limping at the low stakes, it’s more than likely that they are a recreational player.

If you have a direct position on them, you should isolate them with an open-raise. As a default play, you should iso-raise to 4 big blinds.

If there have been more limpers, you can bump it up an additional big blind per limper. So 5 BB for two limpers, 6 for three limpers and so on.

Also, if there is only one limper who you’ve identified to be a giant fish, you can iso-raise to 5 or 6 BB if you have a strong value hand, like a premium pocket pair, for example.

Making your iso-raise bigger from the start of the hand will allow you to build up a bigger pot post flop.

This has to do with pot geometry: small changes in your initial bet sizing can dramatically change the final pot size.

Check out my other article on everything you need to know about preflop bet sizing for more info on the topic.

When you iso-raise, the goal is to get every other player to fold, and the open-limper to call. This way, you will play a heads-up pot in position, as the preflop aggressor.

This is statistically proven to be the most profitable money making spot in no-limit hold’em.

Chances are, you’d be surprised at just how much more money you earn in position as opposed to out of position.

One thing to be mindful of when iso-raising is the players left to act behind you. If there is a fish at your table, chances are that other players will also be aware of it. 

So when you iso-raise, other players may catch on to what you’re doing.

This means they can 3-bet you, which can put you in an awkward spot.

(A 3-bet preflop is a re-raise against another player’s open-raise.)

If there are aggressive 3-bettors behind you, you should think twice about iso-raising, and have a plan ready if you do get 3-bet.

If you expect a 3-bet, you can either give up the iso-raising altogether, or make your iso-raise smaller, so you’re getting a better risk-to-reward ratio.

Of course, if you have a very strong hand, you don’t have to worry about facing a 3-bet.

For more information about dealing with 3-bets and other advanced poker strategies, see my massive 3-betting cheat sheet guide.

5. Use a Hand Tracking Software for Online Low Stakes Poker Games

Poker is a game of incomplete information, and the player with the informational advantage is more likely to come out on top.

If you’re playing poker online, you don’t have the luxury of directly observing your opponents and picking up on physical tells.

However, players still give off information in online poker with their betting patterns, timing tells, and so on.

But at the end of the day, the best way to get information about your opponents is using cold hard data.

If you play poker online, consider investing in a hand tracking software like PokerTracker 4.

PokerTracker automatically imports hand history data from your preferred poker site, and gives you comprehensive stats about your game, as well as your opponents.

In order to improve your game, first you need to identify your leaks, which is very hard to do unless you have a reliable way of measuring your game in the first place.

With PokerTracker, you can keep track of hours and hands you’ve played, your winrate, your stats, and much more.

By filtering for specific in-game situations, you can see exactly where you’re bleeding money.

PokerTracker 4 also has an in-built feature called Leak Tracker, which shows you exactly where your stats fall out of norm from most winning players.

For example, if you are not c-betting the flop often enough, if you are 3-betting too much, or if you’re not being aggressive enough on the turn.

This means the guesswork is completely out of the equation. The software tells you exactly what you should be working on to improve your winrate.

Another benefit of PokerTracker is the heads-up display (HUD for short) that shows you your opponent’s stats in real time.

You can fully customize the HUD to show you the stats that are most relevant for you. Or you can just use the existing HUDs that show the most relevant stats.

PokerTracker 4 comes with a free trial, so there’s no reason not to give it a try. You wouldn’t want to play another session without it, guaranteed.

6. Have a Big, Fat Bankroll for Low Stakes Poker Games (30 buyins minimum)

Following these tips to a tee doesn’t automatically guarantee you success in this game. 

Even with proper game selection, you will experience prolonged losing periods from time to time. This can be especially frustrating if you’re playing against weaker competition. 

The fact that you’re the best poker player at your table doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to win all the time, or even most of the time. 

Poker is a game of razor thin margins, and it takes a while for your skill edge to fully manifest.

In practice, this means you need to get comfortable with losing. And lots of it.

All good poker players know this already.

Think of it this way. 

Imagine you’re playing a 6-max cash game and you’re up against 5 recreational players, each one worse than the last. A dream scenario for any poker player. 

You might think you’ll be able to just print money in that scenario, but here’s the deal. Each of these players will almost always have a significant chunk of equity when playing against you. 

When you put them all together, it means you’re going to lose far more often than you’d like.

As they say, all the fish are one giant fish. You may be the best player at the table, but you’re not playing heads-up against one player. You are playing against a bunch of them, and each one of them has a theoretical chance of beating you.

Think of the action movie where the protagonist can take down half a dozen goons in a fist fight. While it may make for a cool scene, in real life the hero would have his ass handed to him. 

Skill is important, but there’s something to be said about brute strength in numbers. 

So when you lose to a fish, remember that it’s bound to happen from time to time, because there’s simply so many of them, and you’re bound to get hit sooner or later.

One of the ways to deal with this is to have a big, fat bankroll. 

As a general rule, you should have at least 30 buyins for the stakes you’re playing. 

This is enough to handle basic variance without the risk of going broke.

But if you want real peace of mind, it would be better to bump it up even more, to 40 or even 50 buyins for cash games.

This may seem excessive, but again, the point is to give you a peace of mind so you can keep playing your best no matter how badly you’re running.

Let’s say you encounter a 10 buyin downswing. If you have 30 buyins in your bankroll, that accounts for 33% of your total bankroll. But if you have 50 buyins, it accounts for only 20% of your bankroll.

You get the point. The bigger your bankroll, the less dramatic the fluctuations in your overall results.

The importance of a proper bankroll can’t be overstated. Poker can be stressful enough as it is. You don’t need to add on the stress of having to worry about going broke if your downswing continues.

Important note: following proper bankroll management rules only apply if you’re already a winning poker player. 

If not, the biggest bankroll in the world isn’t going to save you. It will just take you longer to go broke.

6 Low Stakes Poker Tips They Don't Want You to Know - Summary

To sum up, here are the simple poker strategy tips that will boost your winrate significantly in low stakes poker games.

1. Abuse the button

Playing in position is a huge advantage, so you should play way more hands on the button than any other position. If your hand is even remotely playable, chances are you can open-raise it profitably on the button.

2. Don’t slowplay

Slowplaying only works if you can rely on your opponent to build up the pot for you, which is usually not the case if you’re playing against a bunch of passive players.

3. Don’t bluff too much

Similar to slowplaying, bluffing is not the best strategy against recreational poker players. Bluffing only works if your opponents are actually capable of flooding, which is usually not the case with recreational players who love to call a lot.

4. Always have direct position on the fish

If you have a direct position on the fish, you’ll be able to take advantage of their mistakes before all the other players. You can iso-raise them to play a heads up pot in position against them postflop, which is the best money-making spot in poker, period.

5. Use a hand tracking software

If you play poker online, consider investing in a hand tracking software. 

PokerTracker 4 allows you to keep track of your stats and your winrate, and it helps you identify and plug leaks in your game. 

Also, the poker HUD shows you your opponent’s stats in real time, so you can quickly recognize and exploit weaknesses in their game.

6. Have a big bankroll

Having a big bankroll gives you a peace of mind to keep playing your best without the risk of going broke. 

You should have no less than 30 buyins for cash games, and 100 buyins for tournaments. Of course, you can bump it up even more, so you don’t ever have to worry about how you’re running.

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.

35 Things I Would Do Differently If I Was Starting Poker Again

I started playing poker nearly 15 years ago. And things were a lot different back then.

Online poker was just starting to become popular. It was really hard to find any good information on how to beat the games. And most people were really bad at poker.

Fast forward to today in 2023 and the poker environment both online and live has changed drastically. There are countless online poker sites to play on and you can find a poker game in most casinos around the world.

It is also much easier to learn how to get good at the game in a far shorter amount of time. However on the down side, people tend to play quite a bit better nowadays as well. 

So in this article I am going to discuss 35 things that I would do differently if I were just starting out again in poker today in 2023. 

Hopefully this will help some of you newcomers to the game get a faster start. Let's go!

By the way, if you're new to poker and you just want to learn my simple system for exactly what hands to play, grab my free poker cheat sheet.

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1. Play Tight

Some things never change and the first thing that you need to learn if you want to win is how to play tight. Luckily for me this came pretty naturally. But for some others this is a real struggle. 

If you find it difficult to play tight then I would suggest adding more tables if you play online. This forces you to be much more selective in which hands you play because you will simply be too busy to play trash!

As a general rule you should look to play around the top 15% of your hands in a full ring game (9 or 10 players) and the top 20% in a 6max game (6 players). 

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2. Learn to Play Aggressive

Something that took me a long time to learn was how to be aggressive in poker. I am naturally a pretty easy going and soft spoken kind of person, so this doesn't come very easily for me. 

However in poker you have to play aggressively in order to win.

In fact it is one of my most important "keys to success" in poker:

So you should be raising or re-raising most of the time when you enter the pot preflop. You should also be the one doing the betting or raising most of the time after the flop.

There is definitely a time and place to just call or check. But if you try to be the one in control most of the time, you will find it easier to win more pots. 

3. Understand Position

Something else that took me a long time to learn was the value of position in poker. There is an old saying in poker that "the money flows towards the button" and it couldn't be more true. 

If you go into PokerTracker for instance and sort your winnings by position you might be shocked at just how much more you profiting from the button and cutoff than from every other position at the poker table. 

So it is vitally important that you learn early on to start playing more of your hands in position and also using your position to take away pots after the flop. 

4. Develop a Preflop "System"

A lot of preflop poker these days is essentially solved at the lower stakes. Now I don't mean that there is a 100% best way to play in every scenario possible. But you can definitely create a sort of "if A, then B" system for your preflop decision making. 

With most of your preflop decisions such as what hands to play from each position and what hands to call with or 3Bet with, these actions really be automatic. In other words you shouldn't have to actually think about it. 

I include starting hand charts with all of my books. There are plenty of other resources like this that can be found around the web as well. 

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5. Learn How to Plan Postflop

Postflop poker (flop, turn and river) is a lot more complicated and this is why it is not possible to create some sort of system or set of charts for what to do in every scenario.

However, you should still have a good general plan of what to do in most situations based on the board texture and the player type. 

So for instance, you can plan to always CBet (continuation bet) on dry uncoordinated flops like A72 or 885 versus passive regs. 

This again takes the "thinking" out of the equation and just standardizes your decision making. A lot of this comes with experience. But poker is a lot easier to play when you don't have to think about every single little detail. 

6. Understand Player Types

So this is why I spend so much time talking about player types like TAG, LAG, Nits, SLP and so on in my blog posts and books.

Because by knowing the basic categories of how people play, this means that you will know what their strengths and weaknesses are. From there you can learn or create the strategies to beat them. 

Here is a video I made explaining poker player types further:

So for instance, double barreling versus the Nits on turn scare cards has long been a favorite tactic of mine because I know that they like to call me a lot on the flop but will fold on the turn if I continue to apply the pressure. 

7. Cut Out Superstitious Thinking

This is why it is also important that you remove any superstitious thinking from your approach to poker. Many people will have a "favorite hand" or decide to pot control a strong hand because they keep getting "sucked out" on lately. 

You have to remove this sort of archaic and superstitious thinking from your game. Poker is cold hard mathematics, odds and statistics. It doesn't care about your random thoughts, short term thinking or emotions. 

This is why it is so important to develop a system of play to standardize your decision making in as many scenarios as possible. The very best players are able to consistently make the best play no matter what the circumstances.

8. Start Small

When I started playing poker 15 years ago I started at the very lowest stakes online, 1c/2c. It isn't that glamorous and let me tell you that nobody gets rich winning $2 at a time!

However, if I was starting poker all over again today I would be even more likely to start from the very bottom. And this is because most people are a lot more competent at playing poker these days. 

Don't make the mistake of starting too high and over-judging your abilities. If the lower stakes games are too easy for you, then you can quickly move up. There is no rush. 

9. Table Selection is More Important That Ever

When I started playing online poker in 2004 I didn't even know what table selection was. And for the most part I didn't need to. This is because there was always a fish on any micro stakes table I sat down to play at. 

In 2023 this is definitely not the case though sometimes even at the very lowest stakes. It is not an option anymore whether you table select or not. It is a must if winning big in this game is your goal.

You can check out my complete guide to table selection right here.  

10. Site Selection is Also Very Important

Site selection is also something that I would take a lot more seriously today if I were starting poker all over again. Some poker sites out there are well known to have softer games (more fish) than others. 

Bonuses and rakeback are also an important thing to consider when you are first starting out. On many poker sites you can still get signup bonuses that get you several hundred dollars which you unlock as you play. 

I took advantage of many of these when I was first starting out and they helped me tremendously in growing my first bankroll. 

11. You Gotta Have the Bankroll

Speaking of bankroll, which is the total amount of money you have available to play poker, you need to take this very seriously in today's games. 

As I often say, you wouldn't try to start a business with $10 or $20 would you? So why would you think that this is a sufficient starting capital investment for a poker career?

I would recommend having at least 30 buyins for whatever stake you choose to play these days and quite frankly more is always better. The ups and downs are a lot bigger these days and you need to be prepared.

Here is my complete guide to bankroll management.

12. Don't Waste Your Time With Play Money

Some people might think that it is a good idea to just play for free online in order to practice their poker skills. Sounds great in theory and I thought so too. But I ended up wasting far too much time playing these funny money games at the start of my poker career.

This is because people play vastly different if even $2 is on the line when compared to nothing. When something is free in life nobody cares. The play money games are complete chaos, nobody folds anything etc.

In other words, it's NOT poker.

Real money is totally different. This is why you should only play in the play money games for a week at the most in order to learn the basic rules of how the game works. 

13. Get a Playing Schedule

The most important thing when you are first starting out in poker is to play regularly and learn from the mistakes that you will inevitably make. So this is why I suggest that you get a regular playing schedule. 

If you have a full time job or school that's fine. Just play in the evenings. I did this for an entire year before becoming a poker pro. Just keep it consistent no matter how you do it. 

14. Study the Game

Studying poker is just as important these days and something that you should be doing regularly. This is something that I will often do on the weekends when I have more time. 

What does studying poker mean? It means reviewing your hands and your opponent's hands in Pokertracker, it means studying poker strategy books, videos, courses or even posting your hands on forums.

In short, it means anything that is going to help improve your poker game in 2023. 

15. Don't Bluff

I know it might sound a little crazy but I would suggest not bluffing very often at all when you are first starting out at the micro stakes. The reason why is because most of your opponents at the lower limits are not going to fold. 

Also, you probably don't know the right spots to bluff yet as well as you might think. Don't get me wrong. You can and should be making a flop continuation bet and sometimes on the turn as well without a strong hand. But apart from this your bets should mostly be for value.

16. Learn to Value Bet Wider

But there is of course a ying to every yang.

And that is why something else I wish I knew when I was first starting out was just how much I could get away with in terms of value betting especially against the recreational poker players. 

If they are going to call you down with anything (which is why we don't bluff), well then all of the sudden you might be able to get a little bit more out of them with that middle pair or even bottom pair hand of yours.

Always be thinking about what they can call you with and don't be afraid to go for that thin value. This is often one of the biggest differences between the top winners and everybody else.

Perfecting the art of the thin value bet is something that I cover in detail in my latest poker strategy book, The Micro Stakes Playbook. 

17. Dumb Everything Down

One of the biggest things that I wish I knew when I first started playing poker was that most of my opponents are nowhere near as intelligent as I gave them credit for.

They might be successful doctors, lawyers, academics or very smart people in general away in their regular life. But put them on a poker table and they just don't really get it.

And what this means specifically is that most of your "fancy plays" will just fly right over their heads. This is especially true with recreational poker players. 

For instance, as I discuss in the "fish psychology" section of Crushing the Microstakes, most rec players view a big bet as a bluff. 

Many people still make the mistake of trying to "small ball" or slowplay their big hand against them though. When in actuality all they had to do was just make the most blatantly obvious play of betting big. You need to dumb everything down at the micros.

18. Get Position on the Bad Players

I talked about the value of position already before but many people forget how important this is vis a vis who you are seated with at the poker table as well.

If you have direct position on somebody (i.e. you are seated on their immediate left), then you can literally print money against them because you get to act after them in almost every single hand. 

So this means that getting position on the bad players will allow you to get their chips in record speed. It is totally fine to jump around from seat to seat or table to table. Always try to get on the direct left of the recreational players.

This is a strategy that live pros like Daniel Negreanu practice as well as he talks about in his new poker training program.

You can't always choose your seat in a tournament, but you certainly can in cash games. Be aware of this crucial aspect of the game!

19. Keep the Aggressive Regs on Your Right

But on the flip side though, it is also extremely important that you keep the good aggressive players on your right and not on your left. 

There is nothing worse in the world than having a skilled aggressive opponent on your left. They are going to make your life hell and prevent you from getting in pots with the fish which is the whole point of why you are at the table in the first place! 

Don't get your ego involved and try to outplay a strong opponent who has direct position on you. This is an uphill battle that you are very unlikely to win. Change seats or leave the table. 

20. Avoid Reg Wars

Building off that last point, you should just avoid reg wars in general. The regs (regular opponents) are unavoidable in today's games. You will have to play the majority of your hands against them. 

However, it's kind of like going to that club or cocktail party which is mostly dudes but has a few hot women. It's fine to talk to the dudes for a bit but please always remember why you are there in the first place!

So while you do want to learn the strategies to beat the regs, you want to avoid getting into protracted and pointless ego battles with them. Always stay focused on the real reason why you are at the poker table. The fish!

21. Put the Regs on Tilt

While I do my best to avoid pointless ego based battles with the regs I do make it a priority to regularly screw with them for strategic reasons. 

This means that I will often pick one specific reg who I happen to have direct position on and just bet and re-raise the hell out of them for the entire session. After this I will return to totally normal play versus them in all future sessions. 

This often manages to put them on tilt (which is awesome) but even more importantly it makes him think I am a total maniac and some other 4 letter words.

This often allows me to get paid off super light way down the line (sometimes months later) because they think that I play this way all the time, when of course, I do not.  

22. Balance Your Range Versus the Regs

Something that you will have to start learning once you climb up the stakes a bit is how to balance your range against the regs. While you should dumb everything down versus the fish and just make the most stupidly obvious play, this won't work against the thinking players. 

So it is important to mix up which hands you bet, raise and call with versus them in order to keep them constantly guessing about which hand you will show up with this time.

I discuss how to balance your range against the good regulars in low stakes poker games in much more detail in my best selling book, Modern Small Stakes. 

23. Build a Poker Network

Something that I wish I did better when I was first starting out was build a poker network. This is a group of friends who you can learn from and help motivate each other to succeed. 

Now ideally you want to find people who do not play in your games. It is of course also vitally important that they are actually winning poker players!

It's super easy to network these days on social media so that is the first place where I would start. I am on all of them so make sure you start by following me: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram.

24. Forget About the Money and the Fame

Many people massively stunt their growth in poker by thinking too much about the money, "going pro" and counting all their future riches. You really need to forget about all that stuff for now and just focus on getting better each day. 

A post shared by Nathan Williams (@nathan79williams) on Dec 22, 2018 at 8:39pm PST

The people who focus on the money in this game and often some of the least likely to succeed. Poker is anything but a get rich quick scheme. If you are just in this for a quick buck, you are in the wrong game.

If you work hard enough in this game the money, the bracelets the fame and so on will come. But this is a byproduct of years and years of applying your craft.

25. The Variance Will Be Crazy

Variance, which is the technical term for the natural ups and downs of poker, is a lot crazier these days than what it was when I was first starting. 

Downswings (meaning you don't make money or lose) for periods of 10k, 30k or even 100k hands are commonplace in today's games. 

To put that in perspective that can mean month's of play even for a regular player who multi-tables online. You need to really be prepared for the craziness that this game can and will throw at you.

There is no way to sugarcoat it. This game is not for the faint of heart. And you need to be very strong mentally in order to truly survive and prosper over the long haul.

If you don't believe me, just have a look at how many people think PokerStars is rigged!

26. Don't Be Afraid to Step Down

So when I am in the midst of a protracted downswing something that I will often do is just drop down in stakes for awhile. I know this can be a hit to the old ego but being able to get yourself winning again versus the weaker opponents is often exactly what you need during these times.

Don't think that there is some weakness in doing this. Don't believe that only "pussies" drop down or some other BS. There is no macho advantage in poker, believe me.

In fact this game will humble you again and again.

You are also on nobody's schedule for what stakes you have to play. It is often a good idea to just drop down and play at very low stakes for awhile to regain your sanity and winning ways.

27. Don't Play Too Many Tables

Some people play way too many poker tables online. I used to be very guilty of this as well. While it might seem cool to copy your favorite grinder and try to play 20 tables at a time, this rarely works out well in today's games. 

It is a much better idea to drop the table count considerably because this will give you much more time to focus on table selection which I talked about before. But also, this will just give you more time to make higher quality poker decisions. 

28. Use a HUD

How do I make "higher quality poker decisions?" Well, when I am playing online this often means that I am looking at any HUD (heads up display) stats that I may have on the person. 

I already talked about this above when I mentioned a nitty player type who calls the flop too much and then folds the turn if you can continue applying the pressure. Well, the numbers that are on my screen via my HUD helps tremendously in letting me know who these players are.

I can see for instance that a certain player only folds the flop 40% of the time but folds the turn 70%. No guesswork needed. This is an easy spot to profitably double barrel.

I have created two custom HUDs that I have personally used for years. You can download them both for free right here.

29. Learn How to Quit

One of the biggest differences between the top winners and everybody else today isn't how well they know how to play their AK in a 3Bet pot. Instead it's what goes on between their ears especially when the cards go south on them. 

The biggest problem that most people face at the poker tables is tilt. You need to develop a good quitting strategy for those days when you just can't win. And you need to eliminate any destructive tendencies that you may have such as jumping up stakes to win it back.  

Learning how to quit is seriously one of the best things that you can possibly do as a new poker player. It takes many people years and years to do this and countless destroyed bankrolls. And some never learn at all.

Phil Ivey actually discusses this in his new poker training course. Learning when to quit was vital for him in the early going of his pro career. 

30. Tilt Control is Vital

But most of the time you can play through the adversity that poker will bring. And this is when you need to be able to exercise better tilt control than you opponents. 

You need to start viewing this game as a long term venture. Days, weeks and sometimes even entire months of play do not matter. You are in this for the long haul and it is only your results after hundreds of thousands of hands or years of play that matters.

This is truly what separates the vast glut of mediocre players and amateurs from that small handful of elite winners. Most people are caught up in the illusion of the short run and lose their mind because their AA got cracked a few times.

You can't think like this if you want to be a top winner in this game.

31. Take Care of Your Life Away From the Tables

For me personally one of the best ways that I ever found to get better tilt control was to take care of what I do away from the tables. This means eating right, regular exercise and good sleep. 

This also means having an active social life and hobbies away from the poker table. In short, you need to treat this game like a professional if you want to get professional level results.

Winning poker is a way of life. It is not just something that you do when you sit down to play. 

32. Always Bring Your "A" Game 

But despite your best intentions sometimes you still just won't be in the best state of mind to play. Life happens to everybody, believe me I get it. 

It is not a good idea to be playing poker when you are tired, angry, stressed out or depressed for instance. This can be a good time to do a session review though or even figure out how to plug your leaks. 

33. Work Ethic is How I Built My Poker Career

With all of that said, you also have to want this much more than the next guy. That might mean that poker is your whole life for awhile sometimes especially in the beginning. It certainly was for me. 

If you really want to succeed in poker then you can't "dabble" in this game like most other people do. You have to be fully committed to putting in the long hours at the poker table and studying just as hard as well. 

I built a 10+ year career out of this silly little card game by being the guy who played way more hands than everybody else and put in way more time away from the tables as well.

34. Time Management is the Key

And this is why time management is the key to your success in poker. When I am at the computer I am either playing the game, studying the game or writing about it like I am right now. Nothing else. 

I am not on Facebook chatting about politics or the latest cat video. I am not on Youtube watching stupid prank videos. And I am not arguing about cryptos with some nerds on Reddit. 

I am 100% focused on this game and always improving at it.


Bonus time saving tip: As a free bonus tip that will probably end up changing your life I am going to recommend that you go log on to Facebook right now and unfollow absolutely everyone.

Yes, even your mom and even your grandma and kid sister.

Your "newsfeed" will be completely empty from now on. It might take a few days to get over the shock and withdrawal that goes along with this.

But this will ensure that you finally stop wasting time on the single biggest time waster in human history, which is Facebook.

Once a week you can go and search about 5 or 10 people who truly matter in your life like your mom, best friend and kid sister. Check out what they have been up to and like and comment on their stuff.

I did this many years ago and it literally changed my life. Seriously, try it.

35. Patience Young Jedi

The final suggestion that I have to offer new poker players is patience. 

Now I know patience sucks, we all want immediate results. But poker doesn't work that way unfortunately. 

This game will try to break you again and again and again. There will be times when it seems like you will never win again. Most people end up cracking under the pressure.

And I am sorry to tell you, but this doesn't magically go away one day. It happens to pros all the time too. You simply have to trust in the process and keep making the same high quality decisions every day at the poker tables. 

This is how winning is done.

Always remember why you started playing this game in the first place. It was because it was fun and exciting!

When you always keep that front and center in your mind you will realize that all the beats and coolers are really small stuff at the end of the day.

You get to play a card game and make money at it. It really doesn't get much better than that. 

Final Thoughts

If I had to start poker all over again in 2023 there are quite a few things I would do different.  

In some ways it is actually easier to get started today because of the vast amount of educational resources out there to help you improve quickly. Even just blogs like one simply didn't exist 15 years ago. 

And speaking of that. This website of mine is one of the best ways to learn how to beat the micro stakes in 2023. 

I publish new articles on how to crush the lower limits every single week. 

Lastly, if you want to know how to consistently make $1000+ per month in low stakes poker games, make sure you grab a copy of my free poker cheat sheet.

What would you do differently if you were starting poker all over again today? Let me know, comment below.