10 Quick Poker Strategy Tips You can click any of these poker tips to jump straight to a detailed explanation that will help your game. Play Fewer Hands And Play Them Aggressively Don’t Be The First Player To Limp.

1. Poker Dealing Advanced Tips Skills
2. Poker Dealing Advanced Tips Tricks
3. Poker Dealing Advanced Tips For Beginners

Advanced Poker Moves: Weapons to Beat Your Opponents. In Unit 3 we looked at the types of bets that you should have in your arsenal of weapons to use against your opponents. In this lesson we are going to add three more advanced betting strategies to make your strategy even stronger. Blind stealing is a strategy used by a player. So far the strategy we have taught you is solid and should be profitable if executed correctly. A-B-C poker is great for the lower stakes tables, but as you move up the stake levels and start to face players with a higher standard of play and experience, then you will need to take your strategy to a more advanced level. Advanced Poker Training will take your game to the next level and help you become the player you were meant to be. Use APT and you'll see improvement in no time at all. ALEX FITZGERALD, COACH AND AUTHOR.

In Unit 3 we looked at the types of bets that you should have in your arsenal of weapons to use against your opponents. In this lesson we are going to add three more advanced betting strategies to make your strategy even stronger.

Blind Stealing

Blind stealing is a strategy used by a player in late position to steal the chips in the blinds. This is done by making a raise to put pressure on the blinds to fold. To use this strategy everyone else must have folded their hands before you.

The theory behind this move is that as the blinds are forced to put chips into the pot via the big and small blind, the likelihood is that they are holding weak cards that they don’t really want to play, and hence they would not be prepared to commit any more chips to the pot.

The strength of your hand doesn’t matter too much, but a half decent hand is a benefit for this move, just in case you get called.

Blind stealing can be risky, but is important when you start to play on the higher stakes tables, and in tournament play. It works best against Tight players who are more likely to fold against your bet. Against a loose player you should limit the use of this strategy to when you have a strong hand.

Every time the dealer button passes around the table and we don’t win a pot it costs us a minimum of 1x big blind and 1x small blind. If we steal the blinds once per round then that covers that cost and allows us to wait for better hands to play the more significant pots. I’m not saying that you should steal the blind every round, as that would become obvious very quickly, but just using it as an illustration.

Isolation Raise

This is a good tactic to use in the situation where a short stack has gone all in and you are considering playing, but there are still other players involved in the pot who could also call.

An Isolation Raise is made to encourage opponents to fold and leave us playing versus just one opponent, usually a short stack who is all in.

Now when we play a big pot / big hand we always want to limit the field to protect our hand, so we want the other players to fold and only play against the short stack. By playing against less opponents, the odds of us winning the hand increases significantly.

So the option we have here is to Re-raise to put pressure on the other players not to play and hence isolate the short stack. Remember if no one else calls your raise, then you have only committed the original short stacks raise into the pot.

Example

Everyone folds round to you in the dealer button and you put in a standard raise of 3x the big blind. The small blind calls and then the big blind, who is the short stack, goes all in. The action is back on you, and you don’t know whether or not the small blind is getting ready to call the small stacks all in raise.

If you were just to call, then the small blind would be getting good pot odds to also call assuming he has a decent hand (and he has already called one raise) so we need to put pressure on him to fold by reducing those pot odds.

So by raising we lengthen the pot odds as he is going to have to put more money into the pot to call, and hopefully pressurise him to fold leaving us to fight the hand out with the short stack.

This is certainly a very useful tactic in Tournament play, but it can also be used in Cash Ring games also.

Semi Bluff

Throughout the course we have talked about the importance of varying your betting patterns to ensure that opponents don’t get a read on you.

Because of this you can’t afford to simply employ the strategy of betting your good hands and checking your weaker hands. We need to mix it up a little. A good way to do this is by a bet known as the semi bluff which is made after the flop or turn card.

A Semi Bluff is a bet made with a hand that isn’t likely to be the best hand at the moment, but has the chance to make the best hand on the turn or river.

A Semi bluff increases our chances of winning the pot as it gives us two ways to win :

1. Making the best hand on the river
2. Forcing our opponent to fold (even if he has the better hand)

This is in addition to the benefit of adding variety to our betting pattern. It forces our opponent to make a decision and as always we are hopeful they will make an incorrect decision.

Example

We hold Q J and the flop has come down A 6 J. The turn card is 2 Here we are holding 2nd pair and a high flush draw.

We suspect our opponent is holding an ace, so we don’t think we have the best hand right now, but we have a number of outs.

Our outs are

• Any diamond to make a flush (9 outs)
• Any Q to make two pair (3 outs)
• Any J to make 3 of a kind (2 outs).

That’s a total of 14 outs, which gives about a 32% chance of making the best hand on the river.

Semi-Bluff Considerations

The size of a semi-bluff should be around the same amount of a value bet so about ½ the size of the pot.

When considering a semi bluff you should consider the following factors:

• The Turn card has given me additional outs
• Opponent has shown a weakness after the flop or turn
• The turn card could have helped me from my opponents point of view (even if it hasn’t) the card has to fit in with the story we are presenting to our opponent.
• Opponent hasn’t shown previous evidence of check raising
• Opponent is not pot committed
• I haven’t been seen to bluff in recent hands

Poker Bankroll Challenge: Stage 10

• Stakes: $0.10/$0.20
• Buy In: $20 (100 x BB)
• Starting Bankroll: $303
• Target: $100 (5 x Buy In)
• Finishing Bankroll: $403
• Estimated Sessions: 5

Use these practise sessions to continue to practise your new strategy. If the situation is right then try and steal the blinds when you are in late position. Also try and spot a suitable situation for a Semi Bluff or maybe even an isolation raise. Use them sparingly at first though until you are more used to using them and the impact they have on the information flow to your opponents.

You are Now Starting: Unit 5 – Advanced Poker Strategy

In this final unit we are going to start to take your strategy to a higher level by introducing some advanced poker strategies and concepts which you can incorporate into your new poker strategy that you have learned so far in this course.

We are also going to complete the Poker Bankroll Challenge and our goal of turning your initial $25 stake into a bankroll of $1,000. This new bankroll will then provide you with the funds to compete at the higher stakes table on an ongoing basis and the sky is the limit on the amount of profit you can earn going forward.

So far the strategy we have taught you is solid and should be profitable if executed correctly.

A-B-C poker is great for the lower stakes tables, but as you move up the stake levels and start to face players with a higher standard of play and experience, then you will need to take your strategy to a more advanced level.

This not only gives you more weapons in your Arsenal to use, but it will also help you to understand when some of these advanced concepts and moves are being used against you and the best way to counteract them.

We are only going to scratch the surface of advanced poker strategy in this unit. Poker is a constant learning process and we will continue to cover more advanced topics in other courses which you can take once you have completed this one.

Lets start by looking at some general advanced poker concepts…

Know When a Player is Pot Committed

Always be aware of your opponent’s chip stack and whether they have become pot committed.

When we say a player is pot committed we mean that he has already committed a significant portion of his stack into the pot, and that he is unlikely to fold now, because he would be left with too low a stack.

Usually if a short stacked player has more than half his chips committed before the flop then he is pot committed. The chances are he’ll either raise all-in before the flop if given the chance or move all in after the flop whether he has hit his cards or not.

Never try to bluff in this situation, as it will be very hard to chase them out of the pot, there’s no point in bluffing if your opponent is not going to fold.

However this also provides an opportunity, by knowing that our opponent is pot committed, we know that there is a good chance that he is betting with a weaker hand than normal, so it allows us to relax our hand requirement a little to call with a more marginal hand and still be confident that we are in the lead.

Responding to a Raise

In the situation where you are involved in a pot and someone raises behind you it is never an easy answer on what you should do. It depends a lot on the size of the raise and the situation at the table.

So there are no hard and fast rules on whether you should call a raise but there is a thought process that you can work through in order to make your decision:

1. Your Hand – did you come into the pot with a solid hand or did you enter with a marginal hand?
2. How many players were in the pot when the raise came in? – a raise against one player shows less strength than a raise against multiple players.
3. How many players are yet to act? – a raise from the dealer button or blinds may just be an attempt to defend the blinds or foil a steal, whereas a raise from a player in early or middle position indicates a lot more strength.
4. Will you have position on the raiser after the flop? – if they are one of the blinds then you will have position after the flop so this can allow you call with a slightly more marginal hand.
5. How aggressive is the raiser? – a more conservative player should be given more respect for a raise than an aggressive player although don’t just assume that an aggressive player is bluffing – remember – he may have a solid hand just as much as you.
6. What are the pot odds? – you should be more willing to call a raise with good pot odds than one with bad pot odds
7. Your stack – are you approaching being short stacked? Have you got time to turn this opportunity down and wait for a better opportunity to get your chips into the pot, or are you in situation where if you folded here, you would be forced shortly down the line to put in your chips in a weaker situation that this one due to your short stack.

If you work through the above factors then it should help you to make an informed decision on whether to make the call or not.

Showing Hands

If you win a pot before the showdown, then you have the option to either muck your cards (without revealing them to your opponents) or to show the hand before you muck, thus revealing the hand you had.

Most internet poker rooms give you this option, with two buttons that will popup with an option to show your cards, after you have just won a pot by your opponent folding.

I see a lot of beginner players showing their hands, and most of the time this really is a mistake. Why? Because you are are giving free information to your opponents about the actions you took with that particular hand or type of hand, it helps them to read your future actions.

The general rule is to not show your hand unless you have to – stick to this, there is no need to give additional information to your opponent if you don’t have to.

However, even though you are not going to use this tactic in your strategy you need to be aware of it, and why other people might do it. Every time an opponent shows us their hand we are going to pay a lot of attention to it, and then walk through the actions they took throughout the hand to help us spot betting patterns and read our opponent in future hands.

But we can’t automatically assume that those patterns will repeat in the future, and you need to understand the reasons why someone might have shown their hand.

Players who show good hands are either

• Overexcited at getting a big hand and not getting a chance to show it or
• They are showing you a good hand so that next time they want to steal the pot you give them more respect because they have shown you that they raised with a good hand.

Players who show bluffs are either

• Trying to temp you into tilt mode or
• Trying to get you to jump to the wrong conclusion – the next time they make a raise the chances are they’ll have a good hand, and because you’ve seen them bluff the pot, they are hoping that you jump to conclusions and assume that this is just another bluff and call with a weakened hand.

Generally you will be able to judge the above based on how good the player is, and whether they are capable of advanced moves like this designed to trick you.

Back to the statement of “Poker being a game of information”, yes we are constantly trying to interpret the information that our opponents gives us, but also you can control the information that you send out to opponents as long as you are aware of what information they have received and how you can use that against them by reversing the story next time you are in a pot with them. Keep them guessing and keep control of your information flow and you will be the one in control.

Time to Up the Stakes

You are nearing the end of the course and so it is time that we again stepped up our efforts to reach our goal of $1,000 from an initial stake of $25. Your bankroll should now be over $200 and things will start to move quite quickly from now with just 4 more stages of the challenge remaining before you hit your goal of $1,000.

So far you have learnt a solid basic strategy and built upon that with some advanced strategies. You now know the process and tools required to make all your poker decisions.

We are going to move away from the 5c/10c tables and on up to the 10c/20c tables for the next few stages. Again you may see a slight improvement in the quality of opponent, but there are still plenty of bad players at these stake levels.

Don’t be intimidated by the increase in stake level but as usual be cautious when you first start until you get used to any differences it may present. Remember the amount of the bets and raises will go up in line with the increase in stake levels, but the maths and our strategy remains the same. There will still be plenty of fish at this level, but there will also be a few more better players thrown into the mix as well.

Poker Dealing Advanced Tips Skills

Now we’re moving onto bigger stake levels, make sure you do not stray from your strategy at all, any mistake will have a bigger dent on your bankroll at higher stake tables. Just play how you have learnt and practised throughout this course and remember the returns from a higher stake table are also more!

Poker Bankroll Challenge: Stage 9

Poker Dealing Advanced Tips Tricks

• Stakes: $0.10/$0.20
• Buy In: $20 (100 x BB)
• Starting Bankroll: $203
• Target: $100 (5 x Buy In)
• Finishing Bankroll: $303
• Estimated Sessions: 5

Poker Dealing Advanced Tips For Beginners

Use these practise sessions to continue to get into the minds of your opponents, study what actions they are taking and try to understand their aim behind each action. Try to spot patterns and when an Opponent shows their hand, pay attention and step back through all their actions and store that information. At the same time be in control of the information that you are sending out and always be aware of what your opponents know about you and factor that in to your future decisions and actions.