Poker is a game of chance, but it’s also a skill-based game. The best players know how to make the most of their chips, how to calculate pot odds and percentages quickly and quietly, and they can read other players’ play.
Become an expert at reading your opponents
As a beginner, you should focus on improving your ability to read other players’ play, which is based on their eye movements, idiosyncrasies, hand gestures and betting behavior. This is a critical skill that can make the difference between winning and losing, so it’s important to master.
Build a strategy to fit your strengths and weaknesses
A good poker player will continually evaluate their strengths and weaknesses by taking detailed notes or reviewing their results. This will allow them to develop a unique strategy for each new game.
Use the ante and river to your advantage
In Texas Hold’Em, which is the most common type of poker, each betting round begins when a player makes a bet, which is usually a small amount of money. Then each player to the left of the player who made the initial bet has the chance to either “call” or raise, if they think they have a better hand than the previous player; or “fold”, which is to discard their hand and go out of the betting pool until the next betting round.
You can’t predict which hand will win, but there are some hands that tend to win more than others. These are called “strength-concealed” hands because they’re harder for people to see on the flop and turn.