Poker is a super fun game. It is a game that you can play with your friends just for fun. But also, you can make a huge amount of money from playing poker. If you are a beginner and are interested in making money by playing poker, then you need to know the different poker tips for beginners that will help you achieve the same. These tips can really help you start your career as a poker player. You’ll be much more confident to take part in tournaments after you learn these tips. It’s really simple and everyone should learn them.
So, as I told earlier, I’ll be talking about 10 useful Poker tips for beginners that will make you a better poker player than you are now. Now, the tips that I’m going to share is useful for both beginners as well as for players who want to play poker casually. These tips for beginners can really boost up your chances of winning tournaments.
Now before we get onto the tips, you guys must learn the poker rules first. If you guys are new to poker and are interested in learning the poker rules, then you guys can read that from here.
Without further discussion, let’s get straight into Top 10 Most Useful Poker Tips for Beginners.
Table of Contents
Top 10 Poker Tips for Beginners are as Follows:
1. Learn Poker Hands Ranking
Now in poker, in order to win a hand, you basically need to have a better hand than the opponent. This is one of the most important poker tips for beginners. Learning hand rankings helps you in calculating the risks you’re taking and in turn helps you read your opponent’s hands.
So first, you need to learn the various hands ranking that determines the winning of that hand.
Here is the ranking of the hands from best to worst
- Royal Flush – Poker Hand that consists of A-K-Q-J-T of the Same Suit.
- Straight Flush – Poker Hand that consists of a sequence of cards with the same suit.
- Four of a kind – Poker Hand that consists of four cards of the same value.
- Full House – Poker Hand that consists of three cards of the same value and 2 cards of the same value.
- Flush – Poker Hand that consists of cards of the same suit.
- Straight – Poker Hand that consists of cards in an ordered sequence without the same suit.
- Three of a kind – Poker Hand that consists of three cards of the same value.
- Pair – Poker Hand that consists of two cards of the same value.
- High card – Poker Hand that doesn’t have any of the hands mentioned above.
To know more about the poker hands, visit here. Now please keep in mind that by knowing these hands is the only way you can win. Otherwise, you won’t be sure which hands are better and this will affect your game. Hence making it one of the most important poker tips for beginners to follow.
2. Decide on what hands you want to play
This again is one of the most important poker tips for beginners, if not the most important one of all. Now, what most players make the mistake is by playing almost all the hands they get at the start. This will seriously affect them in the long run. Poker is all about staying calm and deciding on which hands to bet on.
Now here’s a chart that gives you an idea on which cards to bet to at the start of the hand. Bet only for those which are yellow in color. These count up to 20% of all the hands that you can possibly get at the start.
So in reality, you will be betting only 20% of the time and folding your hands during the majority of them. This becomes crucial in the long run and will play a huge deciding factor for winning the tournament. Hence making it one of the most important poker tips for beginners.
To know more about these hands take a look at the poker calculator that I created. It tells you the winning percentages of your starting hands. It takes into consideration that you don’t know your opponent’s cards. Make sure to play those hands that have greater than 50% of winning chance.
20% of the Poker Hands
3. Learn to maintain a poker face
Having a Poker face is very important and plays a huge role for you for winning a hand. Please make sure to stay calm and hold your composure until the end of the hand, for you to win it. These poker tips for beginners will come in handy for sure.
Now also keep in mind that whenever you are feeling angry or sad please stay away from playing poker. What happens is when you’re feeling any sort of emotion you might tend to be a bit more aggressive and lose a lot of hands. So, it is very important for you to stay calm and have a clear mind in order to play poker.
To learn more about poker face, you can visit my other blog. I have mentioned different ways of maintaining a poker face.
4. Don’t bluff too much
In poker, players tend to bluff more often then you think. Now you as a player must realize that the more you bluff, the more you tend to lose. Now there is a reason for this. Imagine you playing in a poker tournament where you haven’t met any of the players. You have no idea how the other players play.
Now, when you bluff too much, the others realize that you’re betting with the weaker hands most of the time. Once the other players pick you bluffing, then it is very hard to win from then on. This is the reason many players lose thinking they could bluff a weaker player.
Now it is important for you to understand that if you raise a preflop, it is okay for you to bet again. But, if someone else is betting with you, then most probably they have a better hand then you and they could end up winning. So, it is important to have a clear mind while playing poker and not bet too much. Hence, this becomes one of the most important poker tips for beginners.
5. Play plenty of online tournaments before playing with actual money
This is one of the most important poker tips for beginners and must be done before you play with your actual money. There are many free online tournaments that you can play poker and increase your skill. So, it is advised to play a lot of hands against different players online before you actually spend in a tournament.
There are plenty of poker apps present too in the App Store or Google Play Store for you to practice. Once you become comfortable you’ll play more fearlessly and you’ll be knowing what to do in tough situations or if not, at least you’ll have an idea to tackle the situation. Most of the poker players don’t follow these poker tips for beginners and end up losing a lot of money.
Check out the Top 10 poker apps to practice in your mobiles.
6. Try to think in terms of opponents perspective
What I mean by this is that you must try to figure out what your opponent might have or at least have to take a guess the hand and play accordingly. It is very important for you to know why the opponent is betting. By guessing you’ll have an idea whether the opponent is bluffing or not. Yes, it is difficult to do this, but if you get the hang of it, then you will have mastered one of the most important poker tips for beginners.
If you need more help regarding this, then you can follow Daniel Negreanu, who is a master in reading other players hands. Just go through some of his videos and get an idea of how it is done. Even Daniel shares great poker tips for beginners. You can check him out.
I can give you a small tip based on my experience. Usually, players that bet a lot might be bluffing and want you to fold your hand. Now, this might not be true in all situation, but most of the times the players that bid big end up bluffing.
7. Make appropriate bet sizings
This is one of the most important poker tips for beginners. It is very important for you to make the bet sizes according to the situation otherwise you might not win a lot of hands. To understand what I’m talking about, imagine a situation where you get AA as your starting hand and this is best possible starting hand that anyone could get.
Now if you bet a lot, other players understand that you have a good hand and they won’t take the risk in betting and fold most of the time. But, imagine betting low in that situation and make the opponents think you a normal hand and make them fall into a trap. This will work wonders for you. Also, becomes one of the most important poker tips for beginners.
This is just one example that I gave. There are plenty of other situations where you have to bet accordingly. To learn more about betting you have to play a lot of hands to understand. So, please keep practicing until you get the hang of it.
8. Keep an eye on your opponent’s chips
This is one of the easier poker tips for beginners to follow. But, most often than not, most players don’t do this. This is very important for you to keep a lookout for your opponent’s chips. If the opponents have fewer chips, then they are more likely to play aggressively than normal. It is important for you to go and play more hands with players like these because they tend to bet a lot with weaker hands.
Also, if an opponent has a huge stack of chips then he may play a bit more aggressive too since he has got that freedom. But, it is important for you not to engage with such players because they might have a better hand than you and are trying to bluff you into thinking they got a weak hand.
So, it is important for any poker player to keep an eye on the chips count of the others. If you want to know exactly how much they have, you might do so. Please do not think that it is wrong to ask anyone about their chip count.
But keep in mind that the player might not reply to you and that is also fine. Even when they ask you how much money is left with you please just show them your chips and not say anything. This will be a positive for you and the opponent might fold thinking you have a strong hand.
Now, these poker tips for beginners is useful for online tournaments too. But, here you’ll have to keep track of their online cash instead of poker chips.
9. Learn to Fold at a tough situation
This is one of the difficult poker tips for beginners to follow. It sounds easy, but to do it in real situation is pretty difficult. This is also one of the most important poker tips for beginners. Every player must come to a realization that one cannot win every hand in poker. It is very important to learn to fold at the right situation keeping your emotions or ego aside.
In some situation, you might have a very good hand, but you must realize that the opponent might have an even better hand than you. In these kinds of situation, you need to learn to fold and get on with your next hand not worrying a lot. This is where it separates from professional poker players and a beginner. Most of the new players or players with no experience tend to play most hands possible and they don’t fold. This becomes super important poker tips for beginners.
But, as a player, your main focus should be at winning the tournament, not that particular hand. It is ok to lose 1-2 good hands, but this will help you in the long run. This is where a lot of players make mistake and lose at an early stage of the tournament. So yes, it is very important for you to fold your hands in certain situations.
10. Go with your “Gut Feeling”
This is not a poker tip for beginners as such but more of a belief. In some situation, even though we might have a weak hand, we feel as if we might win that hand. During these situations just go with your gut feeling and just hope for the best. It might not always go your way, but it is important to go with your gut feelings once in a while.
Also, during these situations don’t bet too much since there is a risk of losing it. Bet accordingly, so that you don’t lose too much and are still in the competition for the long run. This is super important Poker tips for Beginners.
These were some of the poker tips for beginners and tricks that you could follow and become better than you are. But most importantly, you have to practice a lot to get to a stage where you are comfortable and are winning a lot.
Please comment if you think I missed something. Also, share if you liked it. Have a great day.
I am the owner of the site rohithebbar.com. I love playing poker and other card games.
