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Things to Practice Beyond a Basic Winning Strategy

1. Before you add anything … Many players believe their fundamental game plan is more profitable than it really is. I’m urging you to think about that, and if you see any possibility that the previous sentence applies to you, work on your basic strategy before mastering new skills. Before you add anything to a basic winning strategy, make sure you actually have one. Here are three of the main elements of a basic winning strategy:

(1) In most full-handed limit poker games, play tighter than your typical (too loose) opponents;

(2) raise aggressively with small edges;

(3) find loose and timid opponents. (And I’m just going to assume that you will try to play your best game all the time, because that’s the key to success for all levels of serious players.)

Two not-quite-so-important things that should be incorporated into your basic winning strategy are: Sit to the left of loose players and tough-aggressive players so that you maximize profit with positional advantage, and quit if the texas holdem game isn’t excellent. When you’re at the early stages of becoming a pro, you need excellent opportunities for profit, and you should tend to decline other games. Top pros can play more hands and more games, because they don’t need quite as big an initial edge to turn a profit. But while you’re still advancing, keep you basic strategy mostly targeted at playing stronger hands in weaker games.
2. Just one thing. Usually – in accordance with the Mad Genius Method o learning – try to practice just one new technique or make one new observation at a time. Don’t worry about anything else; just do that one thing. And here are the six things (A through F) I’ve chosen for you to practice beyond your basic winning game.

3. Thing A. Make all bets and raises crisp, certain, and slightly exaggerated. This tends to keep opponents in line and makes them reluctant to raise with marginal advantages, thereby surrendering back to you some of the profit that could have been theirs. This also helps promote an active image and helps you become a force to be reckoned with. However, there are many other ways to wager, and reasons for them. But when you’re just adding to your basic game, practice this crisp-and-certain method of acting first. Do it for one full poker session, then forget about it.

4. Thing B. Routinely raise with any moderately strong hand in late position when a middle- or late-position player is the only one to have voluntarily entered the pot. This helps your aggressive image and maximizes your positional advantage. Of course, you won’t end up doing this all the time once you have the game mastered – just now while you’re practicing. Do it every chance you get for one full poker session, then forget about it.

5. Thing C. Study just one player (preferably across the table from you) and see how this player acts differently when bluffing or not, and when weak or strong. The trick to mastering tells is to focus on just one player at a time. And while you’re learning, it’s much easier (although not as rewarding) to observe a player across the table than one to your left or your right. Don’t look studious. It’s a mistake to let opponents know that you’re scrutinizing them. If this happens, players often will act unnaturally (which can be good strategy sometimes, but isn’t good in studying overall tells). Watch the opponent discreetly, and try to appear as if you’re thinking about something else. Practice this for one full poker session, then forget about it.

6. Thing D. Go through an entire session without ever raising – except when
last to act with a strong hand on the last betting round. Sure, this isn’t the most profitable way to play poker, but it is one of the most profitable ways to learn poker. Practice this for one full poker session, make notes about your experience after you cash out, then forget about it.

7. Thing E. Then, go through an entire poker session always raising with any borderline hand with which you otherwise might just call. Take notes on how the table reacted
and how you fared. Repeating – do this for an entire poker session, then forget about it. Keep your notes for both D and E – and later compare.

8. Thing F (Final). Whenever you’re not in a hand, watch the action. Then when you see who won the showdown, reconstruct the action from that player’s point of view and visualize how that player arrived at the showdown. Nothing will help you understand what hands opponents actually play more than this. What this lesson teaches you is that you shouldn’t always expect opponents to make logical decisions. Strategies based on the assumption that your opponents are quite rational can be very costly. So, practice reconstructing the action sequences for the winning hands. Do it for an entire poker session. When you’re done, think back over all of these missions and try to incorporate them in your future play. You’ll be glad you did. Mike Caro

There are a few poker tools that are so powerful that they are actually essential. At the very least, you need one tracking program like PokerTracker or Holdem Manager. Either one will do you just fine – just make sure you get one. The price looks expensive at first but these programs pay for themselves many times over. The money you earn at the poker tables because of these tools will more than make up for the up-front cost.

1. PokerTracker

PokerTracker is an incredibly sophisticated piece of software that saves every single hand you play poker and stores it in a database. From that database, you can see the playing styles of every single opponent you’ve ever played against. You can see how often they raise preflop, what hands they’ve shown down and much more. The software also provides a heads-up display that you can use at the tables. Above every player’s avatar, PokerTracker displays a customizable list of statistics on that person. You can also view your own stats, create earnings charts and use it to aid you in table selection. PokerTracker is a very powerful tool and every serious poker player has a copy of it.

2.Holdem Manager

Holdem Manager is a direct competitor to PokerTracker. It’s a great program as well and it also saves every holdem hand you’ve ever played to a database. You can view old hand histories, get all the stats on your opponents and use a customizable heads-up display at the table. PokerTracker has been around for a long time but a lot of poker players have made the switch to Holdem Manager. A major selling point for Holdem Manager is that low stakes players can get a copy of it for cheaper.

3.PokerStove

This powerful piece of software is 100% free of charge so get a copy of it right away. PokerStove is an advanced poker odds calculator that can run the calculations better than any other piece of software on the market. PokerStove isn’t a piece of software that you use at the tables like Holdem Manager or PokerTracker. Instead, it’s best used after your poker sessions when analyzing hands and seeing how different hands match up against each other. The best thing about it is that it allows you to work with hand ranges rather than specific hands. For example, let’s say you want to know what the odds are that your JJ will win against an opponent’s range of likely hands. You know that your opponent is willing to go all-in preflop with AA, KK, AK, QQ, JJ and TT. Well, all you have to do is plug in your poker hands and the opponent’s range of hands and PokerStove will tell you what your chances of winning are based on the hands your opponent is likely to have.