In tournament play, it's generally advisable to avoid risking large sums of chips in coin flip situations, like pocket sixes versus A-K. After all, the pocket pair is only a very slight heads-up favorite.
A common mistake made by amateurs is that they fail to take advantage of players who bluff excessively. Instead of playing possum and letting their aggressive opponents continue to bet, beginners raise too early with monster hands, allowing their opponents to fold.
Moving all-in with a small pair from early position only makes sense when you are severely short-stacked and desperately need to pick up the blinds.
Blind stealing is not exclusive to late position play. You can steal blinds from any position, and you should!
In tournaments, players typically raise when they enter the pot. In cash games, though, players are more likely to limp in before the flop. That's because cash games are usually deeper-stacked, meaning that players will have a higher ratio of chips in relation to the blinds than they would in a tournament.
In tournaments, you want to steal the blinds as cheaply as possible without risking a high percentage of your chips.
Tournament play demands patience to survive and win. Winning at cash games demands a whole other level of thought and deception. You need to reach into your bag of tricks and run the occasional big bluff to be a consistent cash game winner.
Beginning players are predictable and rarely bluff. They tend to focus only on their own hand and simply hope to catch the one card they need to improve.
Any call that jeopardizes a big chunk of your chip stack just because you think your opponent might be on a bluff is flat-out wrong.
Many players in the big blind get in trouble by calling pre-flop raises; they try to do too much. They don't want to get bullied, so they attempt a tricky check-raise bluff or overplay their hands in an ill-advised effort to push back.
Bluffing is most effective when done sporadically; bluff too often, and you'll blow your credibility.
Don't try to make a big bluff on the turn with a drawing hand. With only one card to come, even a big draw is an underdog against a made hand. Keep the betting small.
Playing chess can make you a better poker player because it forces you to think several moves ahead. That kind of intense mental exercise develops a deeper level of thinking than is typically encountered when playing poker.
Success at poker is ultimately the result of solid fundamentals and the ability to read your opponents' betting patterns. This is especially true when playing online. But playing live poker is a completely different animal. In this venue, the presence of physical tells can not be overlooked.
Playing deep-stack, no-limit hold'em is a very complex game where the most critical and difficult decisions come after the flop.
If you want to make money playing poker, find a game with a few suckers, fish, donkeys, live ones, or whatever you choose to call a bad player. Just don't let that sucker be you.
Playing correctly from the small blind can be frustrating and confusing. On the one hand, you already have half the bet in the pot, which should entice you to play more hands. On the other, you'll have to play out of position on every street, which suggests that you should actually play fewer hands.
Less control can be exerted in Limit games because it's more difficult to force players out of pots with structured betting. In No Limit, though, hands can be protected from being outdrawn by making large bets that force opponents to fold weak draws.
Soft playing destroys the integrity of the game of poker, and it's wrong - flat out wrong.
Powerful drawing hands, like a pair with a flush draw or even conventional straight and flush draws, are often good opportunities to try a semi-bluff - making a bet or raise that you hope will not be called, but leaves you some outs if it is.
